


imaginary homelands

by wintersend



Series: rebelcaptain exchanges [4]
Category: Rogue One: A Star Wars Story (2016)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Everyone Lives/Nobody Dies, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Break Up, Cassian is a reader, Coffee Shops, F/M, Getting Back Together, Healing, Mutual Pining, Post-Break Up, Post-War, RebelCaptain May the Fourth Exchange, Therapy, Wedding traditions, a little bit of sexy times, canon verse coffee shop au, disclaimer for me being a star wars noob, i'm taking some liberties here, numerous mentions of Cassian's childhood, quite lowkey though, space Jane Austen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-04
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-02-21 16:46:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 37,428
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18706324
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wintersend/pseuds/wintersend
Summary: You used to love me,she thinks.Are we just strangers now?Two years after Jyn and Cassian separated, a chance encounter brings them back to each other again. Confronted with what she lost, Jyn wonders if it's too late to make it right.





	1. reunion

**Author's Note:**

  * For [csectumsempra](https://archiveofourown.org/users/csectumsempra/gifts).



> Written for the May 4th exchange and the prompt, _"There could have never been two hearts so open, no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved."_ This isn't meant to be a Persuasion AU (I haven't actually read it anyway) but I was inspired by the ex-lovers element of the book and ran with that. The quote in specific does come up later as well.
> 
> I'm consistently afraid of including OCs but they were pretty much unavoidable in this scenario. They're not that prominent though, mostly in the beginning.
> 
> You can find a moodboard for this fic [here](https://captainandors.tumblr.com/post/184644236655/imaginary-homelands-for-cassianserso-may-the).
> 
> The title comes from Salman Rushdie whose ideas inspired some elements of this fic.
> 
> Hope you like it and happy May 4th! :)

Jyn is a little buzzed when she hears the news, and she’s not sure if that makes it better or worse.

One night a month, she and her group of friends get together at the local bar to grab a couple of drinks, gossip, destress. It’s part of the routine she’s built over the last two years and she tends to stick to her routines these days. It doesn’t hurt to take comfort in something familiar, or to force herself to socialize sometimes. Otherwise, she’d never have friends.

Friend is a bit of a loose term in this case, but these people are the deepest connection she’s had in a while, so she supposes they can be counted as friends. If friends know nothing of your past or what you’ve been through or anything real about you beyond the surface level stuff. Jyn prefers it that way and would tell anyone if asked that it’s not fear or avoidance, it’s just the kind of relationship she can afford to have with people she has little in common with besides the university they all attend.

So they have classes together, and sometimes hold study sessions, and meet up once a month for drinks, but it’s nothing more than that. She’s a bit reclusive, she knows, but everyone has gotten used to that.

“I saw a hot guy today,” Hülya announces, swirling the straw in her orange-green drink.

Hülya was the first person Jyn connected with during her first week at school through their mutual dislike of the professor’s subtle pro-Imperial comments. The Twi’lek made a sympathetic face when she saw Jyn glowering and later assured her that not all professors were so awful. Then she invited Jyn out for a drink with the rest of her group, and since Jyn hadn’t really known anyone in the entire school, she felt compelled to accept. It wouldn’t hurt to know someone around, she reasoned, and Hülya’s friends were alright. After that, she just sort of stuck with them.

“In this economy?” Atike says, a little bored, and Jyn holds back a snort. Atike is tall and blonde, born and raised here on Aria Prime her whole life. Most people look at her and see a pretty face but she’s far from interested in cosmetics. Of course, she has no shortage of attractive and not so attractive suitors trying to win her attention, but she’s sworn off them years ago. Or so she says. She’s also the prettiest girl Jyn has ever known but that’s beside the point.

Next to her sit the Togruta twins, Tahani and Tamir, and across from Jyn is Mika.

Tahani (the oldest of the twins, thank you very much) is a talker. She’s loud and bubbly and everything Jyn used to hate. Everything she thought was fake and shallow and vain. These days, Jyn tries not to hate so much. Tahani is endearing, if a little frustrating at times, but Jyn can’t resent her when she knows she has the biggest heart out of all of them.

Tamir, on the other hand, is an artist, quiet, a little withdrawn. He never drinks. Even when everyone else is laughing and talking, he just observes. Jyn gets the sense that he wouldn’t even be here if it wasn’t for Tahani and her doe eyes. His silent but perceptive habits remind Jyn a little too much of a certain someone she’d willingly left behind, so she’s always subconsciously avoided his presence. He’s a mystery Jyn is glad to leave well alone.

“I’m hot and you see me every day,” Mika says with the air of playful confidence Jyn has grown used to.

He’s the last of the group, an Alderaanian with his dark hair and deep brown eyes, and that one time they slept together. It was a weaker moment, when she felt lightheaded with yearning for someone who was long gone, and she wasn’t proud of it afterwards. They mutually decided to forget it ever happened, and Jyn was glad of it. She didn’t need romance in her life, or the complications that came with it. Mika is dating Tamir now, anyway, as shocking as that was, and Jyn is glad for both of them.

They’re good people, all of them.

They’re no Rogue One though.

But they’re all doing their own thing now, adjusting to life after the war, and Jyn is trying to do the same. She _has_ to do the same. Living in the past would destroy her.

Hülya rolls her eyes. “Anyway. He came with the delegation the New Republic sent. And before you ask,” she says, not even glancing sideways as Atike eagerly leans forward and opens her mouth, “you know I can’t talk about what goes on during the meetings.”

Hülya studies politics and has a part-time internship at the Capitol Building, working under some politician or another. This means that sometimes she’s privy to negotiations her boss attends but strictly forbidden to enclose any information she learns during the meetings. Atike knows this but her curiosity is greater than her understanding.

“But,” Hülya goes on, “I can talk about the hot guy I saw.”

Atike deflates and leans back in her seat, clearly losing interest. “I suppose.”

Jyn decides to be a good sport and inquires, “Did you talk to him?”

Hülya shakes her head. “I never got the chance. He had the loveliest voice, though.”

“His voice?” Mika frowns. “That’s what got your panties in a twist?”

Hülya barely spares him a glance. “Anyway, he was obviously very attractive too. Tall, lean, dark hair, brown eyes. A little undernourished though,” she frowns. “What do you think they feed them at the New Republic?”

Jyn snorts and presses her lips together. They don’t know about her past with the Alliance or the New Republic, (even though she suspects they suspect it) and she won’t tell them now.

“Perhaps he’s overworked,” Tahani offers, and Jyn marvels at how she manages to sound concerned for a complete stranger.

“Maybe. He was mysterious too, a bit brooding. There was… something sad about him.” Hülya trails off and Jyn’s heart skips a beat. She reaches for her drink to take a quick sip. Deep in her bones, she feels a sense of foreboding, but she refuses to put a name to it. She writes it up as the alcohol throbbing through her veins.

“You do like them wounded and broken,” Mika points out.

“I do not!”

“You kinda do,” Jyn says to distract from her bad feeling, lifting a shoulder when Hülya turns her glare on her. “Remember Brody?”

“That was one time.”

“Do you know his name?” Tahani cuts in, ever the caring friend, and self-appointed peacemaker of the group.

Hülya grins, the kind of smile Jyn has seen her wear before going after a guy like a predator after its prey. “It’s Cassian. Even his name sounds sexy, doesn’t it?”

“Cassian?” Jyn repeats, dumfounded. Heart pounding. The knowing feeling in her chest grows.

She doesn’t know many Cassians, only one, really, but surely, he’s not the only one –

Not the only one with dark hair and brown eyes, not the only tall and lean one, not the only one a bit malnourished and overworked, not the only one working for the New Republic –

“Yeah. It was… Anders or something?”

“Andor,” Jyn corrects her, numb.

“Yeah!” Hülya exclaims with enthusiasm that quickly drops into a frown. “You know him?”

Jyn is too shocked to lie, the words slipping out of her mouth, “He’s my husband.”

* * *

Aria Prime is not home but she pretends it is.

It was home to her grandmother once, and her mother, too, a long time ago. It’s where they were born, where they grew up, where her grandmother died. Jyn never met her but Lyra sometimes talked about her with a nostalgic gleam in her eyes and a hint of a smile on her face. When Jyn asked where she was, why she never came to visit, her parents sat four-year-old Jyn down on the couch and told her grandma had left them before she was born but she was in a better place now. It was the first time they tried to tell her about death, she thinks. Funny how she didn’t understand it then, and how much she grew to understand it later.

If there’s one thing she understands in the galaxy, it’s death.

Nevertheless, Lyra had talked about her childhood on Aria Prime fondly, about her mother’s work as an artist, about the picnics they used to have hiking in the lush forests of the planet. Jyn grew up on those stories and the promise that someday, when the galaxy was at peace, they’d take her back.

When she found herself looking for somewhere to relocate two years ago, Jyn remembered those stories and decided to give it a try.

(Lah’mu was out of the question, and so was Coruscant. There was nowhere else, short of throwing her hands in the air and picking the first planet she could think of.)

Going to school wasn’t originally in Jyn’s plans but when she fled Chandrila and went to the only place she could think of that felt even remotely right, the opportunity presented itself like a door opening after another closed. The University of Aria Prime was reestablished just as Jyn arrived on the planet, after it was shut down for twelve years during the war.

Two weeks of meandering, aimlessly roaming, living in the cheapest and dirtiest apartment she could afford, Jyn accidentally ran into someone who had known her grandmother. She was old and wrinkled, lines of worry and age around her eyes, but she stopped and beamed when she saw Jyn at the marketplace like she was a dear old friend.

Jyn had been wary, fingers twitching at her side to reach for the blaster she didn’t keep on her anymore. (She did keep a vibroblade in her jacket, though, and she was pretty she could take on anyone she wanted, let alone a frail old lady.) But the woman had smiled and said, “Oh, pardon my staring but you’re related to Lianna Forsac, aren’t you? You’re quite a dead ringer.”

That was a name she hadn’t hear in ages and Jyn’s stance loosened, a little curious now. Coming here, she had never considered the possibility that there might be people still living on the planet who had known her grandmother.

“Yes,” she’d admitted, unable to keep the bite out of her tone. Old habits died hard, and she was trained to be suspicious of anyone who knew her name, or in this case, her grandmother’s name.

The old woman was unbothered as she introduced herself as Mari Profisac, her grandmother’s former university professor, and invited Jyn for tea at a local bistro that had just opened. Jyn had no plans for the afternoon, and though wary by nature, she wasn’t afraid of an old lady smiling serenely at her. She’d accepted.

That afternoon, Mrs. Profisac told Jyn old stories, stories she hadn’t heard from her mother, a side to her grandmother Jyn never knew about. Lianna was apparently quite the force to be reckoned with in her youth, a rebel, a firecracker, a passionate and dedicated advocate of freedom. Mrs. Profisac talked of her fondly, with a reminiscing smile. She told Jyn about the university reopening and how Lianna was among the honor students on the wall, and like lightning struck, Jyn knew what she was meant to do.

She found a sense of purpose she was missing and settled into her new life as easily as she could. Since then, she’s rented a better apartment, a little bigger and cleaner, found new friends, and took a part-time job at the bistro the old professor had introduced her to.

It’s not truly home but she stubbornly calls it that and convinces herself she never had anything else. 

There’s a lack of urgency she’s not used to even years after the war officially ended. People are just living now, day by day. It’s a strange thing, and not always welcome, though she knows that’s a selfish thought. Things are almost more complicated now that they are simpler, and there are days she misses the single-minded familiarity of just surviving. If she still wakes up in cold sweat after a nightmare from time to time, well, no one’s any wiser. It’s the fate they all bear, ex-soldiers born and raised in war.

It’s not the only thing she can’t leave behind.

Like a prisoner of her past, she still wears Cassian’s shirt to bed sometimes, and now, she stands in front of her closet, eyeing the green material stacked under her shirts – her biggest secret. It ended up in her bag somehow when she packed her stuff and she didn’t have the heart to throw it out. It has long stopped smelling like him, and it brings no comfort when she wears it. It hurts, really. But she likes it that way. Sometimes, she has to remind herself that she’s alive.

Jyn exhales. She doesn’t need a shirt today to remind herself of the pain she felt when she left him.

She swivels around, draws all the curtains across her windows, sits on her couch, and thinks.

Why is he here? Does he know she’s here?

She remembers the shock on everyone’s faces when she announced Cassian was her husband. The disbelief, the stunned glances they threw each other. Even Tamir looked surprised.

“I didn’t know you were married,” Hülya had managed to stutter, uncomfortable, and Jyn had shaken her head.

“We’re separated. Not officially,” she’d added because that felt like an important distinction.

Now she wonders if that’s about to change. Her stomach twists.

Is that why he’s here? To end it for good?

She stands up, abruptly, and walks to the windows to pull out the curtains, squinting in the sunlight.

Cassian is here with the New Republic. He probably doesn’t even know she’s studying on Aria Prime. That couldn’t be the reason for his appearance.

Like a maniac, she draws the curtains in again and walks to the kitchen. She needs to do something with her hands.

Maybe he does know, she thinks, as she pulls out a mug and methodically begins to brew herself some tea. Maybe that’s why he’s the one who came. What are the chances anyway? What are the chances they’d randomly run into each other again in this whole wide universe?

Jyn pours water into the kettle and drums her fingers on the counter as she waits for it to boil.

So if that’s what he wants, if he wants a divorce, she won’t deny it from him. She wouldn’t dream of telling him no, even if it’d break her heart. It’s not like it matters. A piece of paper isn’t going to change anything. They aren’t together. They gave up, they quit this marriage two years ago. What marriage it ever was, anyway.

But –

They aren’t divorced either, and somehow, that matters to Jyn. A divorce feels final. A divorce is real. A divorce says there’s no going back, there’s no second chance, there’s no “us” ever again.

Jyn likes to leave that door open, just a crack, just for the distant possibility. If she has to let go of that, she might as well let go of his shirt too. Bury any fantasies she still has of growing old with him.

 _You gave that up,_ a nasty voice sings in her head as Jyn watches the kettle slowly heat up.

_What you had with him was irreplaceable; a partnership, trust, mutual respect._

_And love, so much love._

_You gave that up._

The kettle shrieks and Jyn pours the water into the mug with a sigh of defeat.

It’s just that, love wasn’t enough.

* * *

She avoids her friends for the rest of the week, especially Hülya, even though she doesn’t really harbor any ill feelings towards her. She just doesn’t want to deal with the questions, the looks, the murmured whispers behind her back. She keeps her head down during class and leaves as soon as it’s over. She takes an extra shift at Belbe’s Bistro and hikes during her free time, just to minimize the time spent alone at her apartment, just to keep her mind pleasantly blank.

Cassian never reaches out to her and she begins to think he has no idea she’s here. Maybe that’s for the best.

But knowing he’s here, so close he’s almost tangible, the desire to see him is undeniable.

On her way to work, she walks a little slower around the Capitol Building, both dreading and hoping to catch a glance of him. She never does. She doesn’t dare comm Hülya to ask if she’s seen him again.

Then eight days after she’s learned of his arrival, Cassian Andor walks back into her life looking the same she remembers. Head held high, face unreadable, gaze ever vigilant. It takes her a moment to remember to breathe.

She can tell from the loose set of his shoulders that he’s not here for anything official, not here for work, and not here for her. No, she’s sure of that; his posture is too relaxed, and she knows how wound up Cassian gets in serious situations, how tightly controlled. It’s possible he hadn’t known she was here in this bistro, or on the planet at all.

Yet, almost instantly, like gravitation pulls him towards her, he looks at her. It’s nearly comical to see his eyes go wide as she stands there, frozen on the spot.

So he didn’t know.

And it caught him off-guard, in a way that most things could never. Cassian never shows surprise or shock for more than a flicker of a second, and even then, you have to pay attention and know what to look for to catch it. She should know, she’s made an entire challenge of it back in the day, trying to see how many hidden expressions she could catch and interpret during slow missions, or long mind-numbingly boring briefings.

He had a tendency to slip when she was involved, not bothering to hide his relief when she came home in one peace, showing open concern when she was injured, or giving her small but genuine smiles at her lame attempts at joking. It used to delight her, make her feel important and special, but all she feels right now, watching him in the doorway of Belbe’s Bistro, is dread.

Her old beloved ghost. He looks out of place in her new life, like he doesn’t belong. If she didn’t know he was here with the New Republic, she’d think he was just a waking dream.

Cassian hasn’t moved from the door and he looks so lost that for a horrifying moment Jyn wonders if he’s going to turn around and walk out.

But Cassian is not a coward. His eyes flicker across the faces in the bistro like the good spy he is, _was_ , and starts walking towards the counter. His steps are surer than his expression, confident and purposeful, while his face remains anxious. Mouth twitching, lines around his eyes, forehead creased.

She still knows his tells. She wonders if he knows hers and sees how terrified she is.

He stops in front of her, silent. Jyn’s hands feel like lead, unable to move them, her entire body burning under his studious gaze. _What does he see?_ she wonders. _Do I look better? Worse? Do I look happier or sadder? Do I look any different at all?_

He looks… worn out. Thin as always, circles under his eyes as always. Beautiful as always.

Jyn’s heart aches for him, clearly seeing that he has not found peace or acceptance. Cassian is as haunted as she remembers him.

Then again, she hasn’t exactly found peace or acceptance, either.

“Jyn,” he acknowledges at last, quiet and drained. She could have smiled because she knew that was going to be his first word, but the jolt at hearing her name from his lips occupies her mind. Exciting, painful; a bittersweet combination.

“Cassian,” she mirrors, glad to hear that her voice doesn’t waver. She stops, waiting, but he looks at her like he expects her to continue.

She hasn’t thought of what to say to him if she saw him. She figured if he knew she was here, he’d come to her and talk to her if he wanted to. Then she’d work from there. But now he’s more surprised than she is, who had a couple of days to digest the news of his arrival, and she doesn’t know what to say.

Bilbo’s Bistro is a quiet cozy place, unlike the café across the street with its busy buzzing customers. It’s a good thing, too, because she’s sure this whole affair has taken a couple of minutes, at least, and it means Cassian isn’t holding up the line. She’s not surprised he chose this place over the other.

 _Good to see you,_ she tests in her head, and decides that’s too noncommittal. _What are you doing here?_ she tries, but that’s too aggressive. _How have you been_ – no, no, that’s just frivolous.

“You don’t seem surprised,” he notes when she stays silent long enough to realize she’s tongue-tied.

Sure, he noticed that. That’s being married to a spy.

“I am – I mean I’m not, I knew – but –”

She’s saved by the ringing of the bell above the door, a sigh of relief escaping her as a new customer steps inside. Cassian catches it, of course, and a wry barely-there smile twists his lips. Jyn’s stomach plummets.

“I’ll have a cup of caf, please, no sugar, no cream,” he says, all professional and business-like.

Jyn presses her lips together. She knows for a fact that he only used to drink it like that on missions; generally, he prefers it sweeter, like everything else. She wants to point that out but she knows his preference could have changed. She doesn’t know if he’s the same Cassian she left behind.

“Here or to go?” she asks, mirroring his tone.

“To go,” he says without thinking. Jyn tries not to blanch.

Cassian never buys caf to go. He buys it to sit down and scoop out a place, waiting for a contact to show up. _It’s a waste of credits,_ he said, _when you can just make it yourself._ But that was on his missions, and now he doesn’t have those anymore. Besides, most people who want caf to go visit the café down the street. Bilbo’s Bistro was a place to sit down and talk. She wonders why he even came here.

She rings him up methodically, accepts his money, and makes his drink. During rush hour, there’s another waiter to make the drinks, but she’s alone now and she’s grateful for that. It would have been embarrassing to have one of her co-workers witness this spectacular marital reunion.

Cassian takes his drink and gives her one last lingering look. She can see him poised to go, possibly walk out of her life forever, and she’s suddenly sure she can’t let him leave yet.

“If you want to talk,” she says impulsively just as he pushes off the counter, breath catching in her throat, “I’m off at four.”

His gaze sweeps over her, contemplating the offer, the fearful and childlike way she looks at him, the sincerity in her eyes, her hands clasped nervously. He nods, his face serious.

“I’ll be here.”

* * *

Cassian arrives five minutes before four, orders a blumfruit muffin and water, and sits down to wait for her. She figures they can talk here; the bistro isn’t closing yet for a couple of hours, and though the idea of bystanders witnessing their potentially awkward conversation doesn’t sit well with her, the idea of being alone with Cassian scares her even more.

It’s too easy to fall back in love with him.

He’s inscrutable the whole time, visibly more composed than he was hours before. Clearly, he took the time to put himself together, keep his feelings off his face, and she wonders how much she’ll be able to get from him if he’s resolved to keep a tight check on his emotions. Sure, she had been good at it before, but two years has passed, and the walls he had let down for her were rebuilt, possibly higher than before.

She spends her last five minutes sneaking glances at him, sitting straight with a datapad in his hand, never looking back. Once, out of frustration, she stares at him for a good ten seconds, and she knows he can feel her watching him, she knows it like she knows her own name, but he won’t look back. Stubborn bastard.

But when she emerges from the back, after changing into her regular attire, he’s watching, waiting as she walks to his table. His gaze is still unreadable, perhaps a hint curious.

She sits down in front of him and he puts his datapad away.

“So you’re a diplomat now?” she begins, unceremoniously, because that’s the only thing she could think of to say during the four hours he was away. Yes, she’s helpless.

A pained wince twists his face. “I really wouldn’t call it that. I’m no politician. But Leia says I have natural charisma.”

“Leia, huh?” she says, surprised at the casual use of her name. For as long as she’s known them both, Cassian always referred to her as princess, mindful of the title. She’s missed a lot, apparently.

He clears his throat. “She’s a friend.”

So it seems. Cassian didn’t have a lot of friends when she knew him, most of them forced on him by circumstance. Of course, that didn’t mean he cared about them any less, but he never went out of his way to make new friends, never wanted the connection only to inevitably lose it. Then again, neither did she. But things are different now, or so they say. Jyn hasn’t known anyone who died in two years which is an interesting revelation.

There’s a pause before Cassian admits, “Truth be told, I wasn’t supposed to come. Someone caught the flue last minute and I was available. Leia said it would be good for me, whatever that meant.”

Jyn raises her eyebrows. “Wait, you don’t think –”

“That she knew? Yeah. I wouldn’t be surprised. She meddles like that.” He lets out a wry snort. “It’s her way of showing concern.”

Jyn thinks back to the research article she published last month through the school, and wonders if that’s how Leia found her. Though if the princess set her mind to it, Jyn is certain she would have found her either way. For starters, Jyn keeps in touch with Bodhi, who keeps in touch with Luke Skywalker, who could have babbled as well. No doors are closed in front of the princess of Alderaan.

Still, it’s almost offending that a woman Jyn has talked to maybe ten times in her life is more up to date about her whereabouts than her own husband.

 _Cassian owes you nothing,_ she tells herself, refusing to feel upset. _I owe him nothing. There’s no reason for him to keep tabs on me._

“What about you?” Cassian asks when she doesn’t reply.

“Huh?”

“You’re a waitress?”

“Oh, it’s a part-time job. I’m studying, actually. At the university.”

“Really? How is it?”

“Oh, it’s great, it’s – great.”

She hates how it awkward this is, how they used to be able to talk about anything, and now she doesn’t even know how to tell him what she could tell complete strangers. School is the simplest, easiest thing in her life, and she has no words to tell him about it.

 _You used to love me,_ she thinks. _Are we just strangers now?_

They were always bad with words. Love, trust, that was never their problem. It was all the rest. The lack of communication, the stupid fights, their childhood-born inability to be happy, to live without war… It was all the things that led to their downfall.

“I have to admit… it’s not what I expected.”

She snorts, undignified. “Yeah, me neither. It just… happened.” She clears her throat, tries to get herself together. “I’m studying geology.”

Recognition dawns on his face. “Like your mother.”

“Yes.”

“Jyn, that’s great. I’m glad for you.”

And the worst part is that he genuinely seems to be, and it makes her heart throb to think of the way he always supported her. Even when they were unhappy, in the last few months, he always stood by her.

There’s a lull in the conversation and Jyn considers drowning herself in his glass of water. This is harder than she thought.

“So,” he says, and bless him, he’s really trying. “I finally rebooted Kay.”

Jyn snorts at that. They always talked about it, finding him a new body and using his backup to restore him, and Jyn had promised Cassian to help with the task. Anything to make him happy, she would have done it. (And anyway, she had grown antagonistically fond of the droid herself.) Problem was, finding a KX-series security droid proved to be rather difficult, especially with the rebellion eating up all their time, and anything else was incompatible with Kay’s memory disc. In the end, they simply never got around to it.

“Is he here?” she wonders, unsure which answer she’s hoping for. Kay wasn’t her biggest fan, maybe even less so now that her marriage with Cassian has failed. But the last time she saw the droid, she was giving him a blaster to protect himself, and in return, he gave her what she thought was almost a compliment. So maybe that counts for something.

“No, I came with a protocol droid. Kay opted to stay back on Chandrila. Eight-foot tall security droids do not make the best partners for a diplomatic mission, he said. I think he just thought it would be a boring trip.”

 _How’s that for boring now, Kay?_ Jyn thinks, sure that he would have many snarky comments for her if he was here.

And then, it just slips out. “I bet he’s happy you got rid of me.”

 _Wrong thing to say, wrong thing to say,_ Jyn’s mind screams at her like an alarm. She meant to be playful, teasing, but Force… that was just in bad taste.

Immediately, Cassian’s face darkens. He looks at her with cold anger and Jyn shies away from his gaze. It’s not an expression she’s used to from him, not directed at her. The last time… the last time he looked at her like that was on Eadu. After that, even when they fought, he was never cold.

“Sorry,” she squeaks, looking down at her hands. It doesn’t look like he’s going to answer, and perhaps that’s for the best. She can’t imagine she’d like anything he had to say, even if she’d deserve it.

He grunts, a nonverbal acknowledgement. It doesn’t completely feel sincere.

“How long are you here for?” she asks awkwardly, wishing she had something in front of her to occupy her hands, ease her nervous fidgeting. Unconsciously, her hand drifts towards her necklace.

“I’m leaving in six standard days.”

“And you really didn’t know I was here?” she asks, struggling to keep the childish heartbreak from her voice. “You didn’t keep tabs on me?”

She knows it isn’t fair to ask him that but she’s always been a little selfish when it came to Cassian. She always wanted his attention, his love, his promises and reassurances. She put him before herself anywhere, anytime, but she also wanted him all to herself. She supposes that part of her never died.

“You didn’t exactly want to be found,” he points out calmly. Despite his poker-face, she can see she’s pushing him away by putting him on the spot like this. She didn’t mean to accuse him, but he’s closing up, defensive. “You knew where I was, it was easier for you to reach out to me. But you never did.”

And that’s true. But she kept tabs on him. Enough to know he was not dead, just a few comments from Bodhi after some subtle prodding. And she knows if something happened to Cassian, the Republic would contact her, because she’s still, for the time being, his wife. But if anything happened to her… no one would know to contact Cassian. He’d eventually hear from Bodhi, but they didn’t talk so often that the news would reach him quickly. Does she even want him to find out? Perhaps he would be better off not knowing.

But she’d want to know if something happened to him.

She doesn’t know how to respond, and he waits, gazing at her questioningly, sighing when he sees she’s not going to answer.

“I just don’t get it,” he admits quietly, and she’s taken aback by the unexpected pain in his voice. “No letters, no notes, not a kriffing word.”

She gives him a blank look. “What do you mean?”

“What I mean is that you left in the middle of the night without so much as a goodbye.”

Jyn stares at him in mild horror, unsure if he’s joking or hit his head. He looks back without flinching, eyes running across her face, looking for answers. Force, he’s serious.

“I said goodbye,” she says, voice high from incredulity. They said goodbye, not with those words, perhaps, but they parted on their own terms. It’s very clearly carved into her mind. “We agreed on it. You said –”

“I said I couldn’t watch us fall apart,” he interrupts, voice strained. The same words he told her two years ago.

“Yes! Exactly. And I agreed.”

“I didn’t realize it was a break up,” he says slowly, like it should be obvious. Her heart is pounding, horrified at where this is going, and she shakes her head, desperately trying to unmake it.

“Of course it was,” she says, and she can hear the panic in her own voice.

“It wasn’t to me!” he bursts out in a rare display of raw emotion. Jyn’s head is spinning.

“I…” What had she done? “I... I didn’t just abandon you, did I?”

He says nothing, he just… looks at her, and that’s worse. So much worse. Because they used to be able to communicate with just a glance, and some things don’t change. She can still read the pain in his eyes, the deep-seated sorrow and weariness, she can hear what he’ll never say, what he could never put into words as well as he could show it. Cassian doesn’t speak but his face says it all.

And she knows she did, she abandoned him.

He closes off like a switch he turns off, the lines around his mouth smoothing out, eyes going blank, face carefully empty. He won’t give her anything else but it was enough.

“Oh, Force.” She buries her head in her face, struck with grief. She can’t face him. She thinks of how she packed her stuff just before dawn, how she left while he was asleep, thinks of how he must have woken up alone, confused and devastated. It used to haunt her for months, wondering what he did, how he felt when he woke up that day, but this is so much worse than she could have imagined.

She never meant to leave him without a word, she just thought he understood, that they agreed, they were on the same page, and it was better if they didn’t – if he didn’t hover while she packed, if she didn’t have to look him in the eye and say goodbye, didn’t have to turn her back on him and walk away. She wasn’t sure she’d have the strength to do it.

But she doesn’t know how to say all of that. She uncovers her face and settles for a quiet, heartbroken, “I’m sorry.”

He shrugs, so painfully impassive now. He’s locked away his pain and refuses to give it room again. “It’s water under the bridge.”

“No,” she says, struggling how to phrase that she hadn’t mean to discard him like a broken toy, knowing that it’s not okay. It’s not unimportant. His pain matters to her, even after all this time.

“Jyn,” he says slowly, like talking to a child. “I’m over it.”

She swallows and gives him a small nod. She feels incredibly stupid.

“I should go,” he says, standing up, shouldering his jacket. It’s an old one, the brown he wore when she first met him, and she idly ponders that the last time he wore it with her, they fucked on his office desk on Chandrila. It was a little before they fell apart, and she remembers that she could feel it coming in her bones, knew that she could not keep him, and she remembers the desperate way they moved together and touched each other and sucked bruises on the other. She had wanted to imprint herself on his skin so he could never let her go, and perhaps he’d meant to do the same.

“Alright,” Jyn manages, aware of how weak her voice sounds. One afternoon with Cassian Andor could ruin her like it was two years ago again, and all of her happiness and sadness depended on him.

He doesn’t smile at her, doesn’t trick her with that falseness, or pretty words about how nice it was to see her. It wasn’t and it never would be and they probably won’t see each other again. They both know that.

He just looks at her, one last time with a glint in his eye, then turns around and lets her go.

 _Don’t let me see you go,_ he said to her every time they had to part with each other, and she hadn’t, she didn’t. She didn’t want him to watch her pack, watch her leave, watch her fade from his life in front of his eyes. They hated goodbyes. But now she watches him go, like he never had to watch her, watches him walk out the door and turn down the street until he disappears from view.

Goodbyes hurt.

This does too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’m gonna try to update relatively soon! I know exactly where this is going, I just need to find the time to write it.
> 
> Thanks for reading! You can find me on [tumblr](http://captainandors.tumblr.com/)


	2. rediscover

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I wouldn’t have made a good wife,” Jyn murmurs, wistful, eyes opening. 
> 
> He laughs quietly and without humor. “I don’t think I would have made a good husband.” 
> 
> Here it is again, their dilemma: do two wrongs make a right?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for the comments and love on the previous chapter <3
> 
> For all of you saying it was sad, be prepared because this one is worse. But chapter three should make up for it. This is a happy ending story :)
> 
> I know this one is quite long but I didn't want to cut it in half, I felt like it needed to be told in one piece. I hope you enjoy!

Cassian feels like he’s living a lie sometime. Politics, diplomacy, negotiations; it’s not who he is. He’s not sure who or what he is but he knows it’s not this. Carrying a briefcase, wearing a suit, struggling through meetings – his patience has a limit too, even if he’ll never show it. The talks are long and tiring, and the pay is not entirely worth it. That’s the least of his concerns, of course, but Cassian can’t help thinking that his presence on Aria Prime is not entirely necessary.

Why is he here except for Leia to play matchmaker? (He would wrangle her, if he was that kind of man. Instead, he’ll just make a polite comment in passing, and she’ll ignore it or maintain she was right, and he’ll let it go. Because he was that kind of man.) There’s no purpose for him to be here. It doesn’t feel right.

Of course, this is a temporary role but his day to day work with the New Republic is no more rewarding. Paperwork and desk duty and more paperwork. He had helped with the transition and the rebuilding efforts during the early years and that felt right but this is not that anymore. Somewhere along the way, he got stuck in this cycle without realizing it.

Not for the first time he thinks, it’s time to let it go. _I’ve done what I could. It’s time to move on._

 _But move on to what?_ he asks himself and comes up blank. He has nothing else. He’s never had anything else. And every time, fear of that empty nothingness keeps him where he is. Something is better than nothing.

Jyn, he thinks with a hint of envy, lying on his hotel bed with his hands propped under his head, Jyn was not afraid to let it go. Jyn found herself.

He’s happy for her. He hopes she’s content with her life. He never should have expected her to find his identity for him or fill the void the war has left. She should have been something to lean on to support him, not the bane of his existence. He sees that now but it’s pointless.

The unreasonable expectations he put on her strained their relationship, but he was too blind to see it then. Now it doesn’t matter. _It’s water under the bridge_ , he’d told her, and that was true. He can’t change the past. He can barely change his future.

No purpose, no goals, no identity – no future.

He’s fought the war, but he never thought to survive it. But he did. He survived. What do ex-spies and ex-murderers do in peacetime?

 _It’s no wonder she left,_ he thinks bitterly. He’d been holding her back.

Cassian turns on his side, facing the door to his hotel room. The room is white, bare and impersonal, and the worst part is that it looks too much like the apartment he calls home back on Chandrila. He works long hours, more out of willingness than necessity, and only stumbles home late at night when he’s too tired to hate the ringing silence that awaits him.

Leia calls it avoidance. She’s probably right, though he denies it vehemently every time. If it wasn’t for her and Kay forcing him back to his apartment, he might start sleeping on the couch in his office. It’s quite comfortable; he’s tried it before. Anything is better than the bed with the blue comforter in the middle of their bedroom that he has not touched since he woke up alone in it.

He tries not to think about Jyn anymore, but the memories linger, and a nagging little voice asking “why?” creeps back every time. He knows why, of course, but it’s the principal of it, the lack of closure. He never imagined she would leave like that. He thought she might leave, had suspected it for a while then, but the how of it left him reeling. Countless times he’s considered finding her just to demand answers, or file for a divorce, or anything that would get him the closure he needed.

He doubted it would make him feel better though, so he never did. He was afraid to see her and find out that she was better off without him, that leaving him was the best choice she ever made. Perhaps he was a coward.

But he was right; seeing her made him feel no better. He knows they always had a problem with words and talking but how could they have misunderstood each other so spectacularly? Two people who could communicate without words never seemed to get the full picture when it came to their relationship. Perhaps the losses and pain they suffered in the past never gave them a chance.

Cassian sighs and closes his eyes to try to get some sleep. Tries not to think about the few occasions he shared a hotel room with Jyn, including the first time they kissed on an undercover mission on Corulag. She was the one to make the first move then, and she was the one to end it later. She’d always been the brave one.

 _Closure_ , he thinks before his mind goes blank. He just needs closure.

* * *

 

His feet carry him back to that bistro.

He stops outside for a second, looking up at the letters spelling Belbe’s Bistro. He had walked out on her yesterday with the belief that he’ll never see her again, yet here he is. A moth to a flame, he can’t stay away.

Seeing her had been a shock. He discovered the small quiet bistro one afternoon after a particularly tiring meeting and enjoyed a warm cup of caf and a few hours of peaceful reading. It was a habit he picked up after Jyn left, unable to stay in their empty haunted apartment on the rare occasions he had some free time. He found that sitting in a café reading a good book took his mind off the disaster of his social life and being near people who didn’t know him or expect anything of him was refreshing, at times. People looked at him and saw nothing but another customer. It let him ease the burden of being Cassian Andor for a while.

His hotel room here on Aria Prime was similarly empty and similarly silent, so he walked the city and took refuge in caf houses and little diners. But then he returned to that bistro and he found her there, looking like a ghost straight from his nightmares. He’d never known she was on the planet, hadn’t expected to encounter the one face he couldn’t forget. It had been almost enough to make him bolt.

But real Jyn hadn’t said any of the things dream Jyn sometimes said to him. She’d been shier and far less cruel. Remorseful, even, when she heard his side of the story.

That had been what made him bolt in the end. He didn’t want her pity.

Now, he hopes they can put that behind them, for his own peace of mind. He doesn’t have the faintest clue how he will get the closure he needs, but one way or another, he’s going to leave this planet and leave Jyn behind with it. And when he goes back to Chandrila, he’s going to pack up his stuff and find a new apartment like he’s been thinking about. And he will know that they made the right choice, that Jyn is happy, and he’ll be fine too, someday.

When he walks into the bistro, Jyn isn’t there. He walks up to the counter where an elderly human lady is chatting with the Zabrak behind it. His nametag reads _Anto_.

“Hello sir, what can I get you?” he asks, and the woman politely steps aside.

“I was wondering if Jyn was here,” Cassian admits but prepares his wallet to purchase something to drink anyway.

“Jyn? She’s not working today.”

Cassian nods in thanks, keeping his disappointment off his face. It was a long shot anyway. Perhaps if he hadn’t left like that yesterday, he might have gotten her schedule. A number. Her address. Anything. Instead, he’s forced to rely on catching her again at the bistro, if he’s lucky enough.

He could ask Anto, Cassian muses, but he can sense that the Zabrak’s suspicion is already piqued, and he might be unwilling to reveal confidential information about his co-worker. Which is not a bad thing, of course. Cassian already feels a bit like a stalker, with the way Anto is measuring him as he makes his caf. The last thing he wants is to be banned from this place.

The elderly woman moves up next to him on the counter. Cassian turns to her and her gaze is curious. “How do you know Jyn?”

He pauses. That’s a loaded question.

He’s never introduced himself as her husband. Never had to. Everybody who knew them already knew who they were to each other, and those who didn’t never needed to know more.

Then she left, and he didn’t have a wife anymore. It would be untrue to call himself her husband. And he has no idea how Jyn would feel about him telling these people they’re married. They are her people, this is her planet. He has no right to make that choice for her.

He settles for another truth. “She’s an old friend.”

“Is that so?” the lady thrills, a spark in her eyes. It’s annoyingly knowing. “And here I thought Jyn never had a man in her life before.”

Cassian should deny that, but he doesn’t like lying anymore. He’s done his share of it and that was enough. Nowadays, he tries to tell the truth whenever he can, or else stay silent and not tell a lie. It’s another reason he hates diplomacy work.

Luckily, Anto saves him from answering. “Here you go, sir,” he says, handing Cassian his cup.

“Thank you,” Cassian says before turning back to the woman. “It was nice to meet you, ma’am.”

He turns to find himself a table and try to forget about Jyn and Anto and the elderly woman with the knowing smile, but she calls out after him.

“Wait.” Cassian reluctantly turns back. He just wants to open his book and lose himself for a few hours. He feels weary beyond his years. “If you’re looking for Jyn, I can give her a message from you.”

Cassian eyes her as she gives him an encouraging smile. Her eyes are sympathetic. No, it’s not quite that. It’s more like understanding. A life of sorrow and loss conveyed in a look. Cassian is no stranger to that look. He’s seen it everywhere across the galaxy, from the young to the old. They’ve all lived this war. That’s what convinces him to agree.

“Tell her I’d like to talk. If she wants to. I’ll be here tomorrow from three to five.” He pauses, wrecks his brain for anything else. An apology is better said in person. Anything more is too personal. Jyn will know if she wants to come, and nothing he says could persuade her.

He clears his throat, giving the old lady a nod. “Thank you.”

“It’s no trouble.”

He tries to smile but he wagers it comes off as a grimace as he fights the overwhelming urge to take it all back. He needs to do this, for himself. But force, it’s terrifying.

She studies him like she sees right through the façade he wears, surprisingly perceptive for her apparent age. Cassian almost feels uncomfortable. How does Jyn know this woman?

Then she settles into another reassuring smile. “Don’t worry. She will come.”

* * *

 

Jyn looks like she’s being led to her execution when she walks in the next day. He expected her to be wary, perhaps angry, but the sight of her visible dread feels like a knife to his heart. Had he been that cold? Is she so nauseated by the idea of talking to him?

He wonders, if that’s the case, why she even bothered to come. Maybe she, too, needed closure.

Cassian stands up on instinct, calm and collected. “Hello, Jyn.”

Jyn eyes him with a weird expression. He realizes too late that he stood up trying to greet her, but he can neither shake her hand nor press a kiss to her cheek. The latter is too intimate, and the former is too impersonal. Neither are them, not anymore, stuck in an awkward place somewhere between the two.

Great. Not even a minute has passed, and he’s already fucking up.

He sits down, trying to seem unbothered, and thankfully, she follows suit without a word.

“Hey.”

She looks great, besides the crippling wariness. The way she looks at him, the way she holds herself are all too familiar; he’s seen her act like this with complete strangers, people she wasn’t sure she could trust not to stab her in the back. It hurts, a little, to be given that same look now. Six years of relationship reduced to being little more than strangers.

He knows, rationally, that she’s wary of him for completely different reasons, but still. He can’t dissociate that look from the way she treated those strangers.

“So you wanted to see me,” she says, hands resting in front of her.

“Yes,” he nods, resisting the urge to fidget. He’d been more composed under Imperial inspection than right now, in front of her steely green eyes. “I’m sorry about the way I left.”

Her reaction is not what he expects. She stares at him for a second before spluttering out a quick humorless laugh, shaking her head at him. Cassian watches in silence, unsure if she’s angry, if he’s offended her somehow. He’s not sure how he could have angered her already but Jyn has always been twisty and unexpected and they’ve been out of synch for years. There are a thousand pitfalls he could fall into if he’s not careful enough.

She looks up at him, the laughter falling away. “That’s not why you came here.”

“No.”

“Then why did you?”

He deflates. The words are like knives in his throat. “I need you to let me go. I need closure.”

She doesn’t seem surprised, but she leans away from him, swallowing as she nods. Her eyes seem dull and resigned. “How can I give you that?”

“I don’t know.”

“Don’t do that,” she snaps, and for a moment, he’s confused again. “Don’t treat me like a child. If you want a divorce, say it. I can take it.”

And he has no doubt she can, though that’s not what he meant. She pulls herself up and looks him the eye. Her face is hard and determined, every bit the woman he first met all those years ago in an Alliance command room. Just as unapologetic and stubborn and detached. But he’s spent years learning her and he knows it’s always a front, like his own. Jyn is passionate and full of life and she feels everything too deeply. She is never indifferent.

The idea of divorce hasn’t occurred to him, though maybe… it’s not a terrible idea. There’s no point in holding onto something that only exists in official documents. He and Jyn always believed in actions over words, and for all intents and purposes, their relationship ended two years ago. If he severed ties with her for good, if he sold their apartment and got a divorce, would he be able to let her go?

It doesn’t completely feel like what he needs but he’s not sure what he needs. It’s not an exact thing, just a rough idea, a primitive desire for closure. Freedom. Peace.

“It’s not what I was thinking of,” he answers honestly, but doesn’t accept or reject the offer.

“Then…” she trails off, looking a little lost. “What?”

“Maybe…” He swallows and thinks of nights spent awake wondering why she left, of the sinking feeling of abandonment, of how much he wished they just talked, and he knew she was leaving, and he was able to let her go. How different it might have been. If it was a mutual decision, if he didn’t spend two years uncertain she ever cared for him at all. “Maybe if we part as friends, that’s enough.”

He never wanted her to be a bad memory. He wants to think of her with fondness and know that though it didn’t last, it didn’t have to, because it mattered all the same.

Jyn looks apprehensive before she leans back in her seat, assessing his sincerity. He has nothing to hide, only the truth written on his face, and he hopes that even after all this time, she can recognize it.

She speaks quietly but it feels like finally meeting in the middle. “Did you know that Bodhi accidentally inherited a mansion on some backwater planet?”

Cassian raises his eyebrows and Jyn lets a small smile grow on her lips.

“How did that happen?”

“Turns out the owner didn’t have any family or friends to speak of and decided to leave his belongings to the first person that walked through the cantina door…”

* * *

 

It isn’t easy, but they find a rhythm. It’s a little shaky, a little irregular, but it’s theirs all the same. Jyn talks about Bodhi and school, and Cassian talks about Kay and work. They talk about Chirrut and Baze and the little girl they adopted that, regretfully, neither of them have seen yet. They don’t talk about _them_ or their relationship, and for a few hours, Cassian almost forgets that’s an issue.

It’s nice.

Of course, it can’t last.

There’s a lull in the conversation, laughter still lingering in the air after Cassian told a story about the time Shara Bey and Kes Dameron paid a visit and their little son attempted to climb Kay like a tree. Jyn stares at her hands with a wistful gaze and Cassian watches the customers ordering and talking, pretends he doesn’t see the aching sadness on her face.

Perhaps that could have been them, Kes and Shara, if things were different. Perhaps the idea that they could have made it is enough. In another universe, one where they aren’t screwed up quite as bad as they are.

Cassian knows he’s selfish, but he wishes it could be this one.

“What were you reading?” Jyn asks abruptly and Cassian glances back to see her gesturing towards the datapad he had set aside when she arrived. “Is it a work thing?”

“Ah… no.” He pulls the datapad closer, running his fingertips along the edges. “I’m reading a novel. A new hobby. It’s historical fiction.”

At her surprised curious look, he adds, “I found I have more free time than I used to. It relaxes me.”

( _It’s the closest I get to peace since you left,_ is what he doesn’t say.)

“What is it about?”

Cassian pauses as he realizes what his answer is going to be. Kriff it. Why this book, why now, why here? Couldn’t he be reading anything, anything else?

“There’s this woman,” he starts, slow and calm, though he avoids looking at her, “who encounters her ex-fiancé again. They haven’t seen in each other in seven years, but there’s still something between them. She broke up their engagement because he wasn’t wealthy and her family didn’t approve. But now they are in financial trouble and the captain has since become a wealthy man. Anne is not sure he can forgive her or want her again.”

He stops and Jyn doesn’t speak. He keeps his eyes on the datapad but the tension between them is palpable. He can picture Jyn sitting frozen, fists clenched, eyes pained. He didn’t think anything of it when he picked up this novel – or rather, he avoided thinking anything of it because literature was his only escape and he wasn’t choosy – but now, he’s forced to confront the similarity of their situation.

A pained break up, a chance encounter, and the distant hope of reconciliation. Is he Anne, wondering if their old lover could return their feelings again, or is he Captain Wentworth, the wronged party who’s wary of trusting again?

Cassian can’t say he was wronged. As much as part of him does resent Jyn for leaving the way she did, he knows he played his part in their separation. He has no illusions of his innocence; the two of them ruined that relationship together, Jyn was just brave enough to leave it.

“She was stupid,” Jyn says simply. She doesn’t flinch away when he looks at her, and her eyes are intense and sorrowful, but he’s too uncertain to figure out what that means. “Leaving her lover because of money and status.”

Cassian’s smile is wry. “It’s not as simple as that.”

“No, I suppose it never is,” she sighs, and the moment breaks. She gestures towards the datapad with a hand. “May I?”

He picks up the thing to unlock it, then hands it to her. He has no idea what she’s going to find, where he left off, because his brain short-circuits as their fingers touch for the first time in years. It’s a small contact, barely there and lasts only for a second, but it feels like a drop of water in the desert. Anything so small after such a long separation is as large as life.

Jyn jerks her hand away _(she’s felt it too, he knows)_ and avoids his eyes by focusing on the text. Only then does it sink in that she’s going to read the page he’s at, and he wonders if she means to make this more painful than it is. That’s their thing. He’s never been able to stay away from her, no matter how much it hurt, and she, too, always sought him out after a fight, like a creature unable to help its nature. Perhaps it’s their magnetism that makes them powerless to stop seeking out moments like this.

Her eyes fly across the page, mouth working quietly.

“There could have never been two hearts so open,” she murmurs, to herself, not him, but he hears every word, “no tastes so similar, no feelings so in unison, no countenances so beloved.”

He thinks of long nights spent in the comfort of her arms, entire conversations spoken without a word, the initial eagerness to be worthy of each other before time and exhaustion chipped away their patience to keep trying. Yes, he supposes, he understands those words better than most. He’s lived it.

Jyn stops and looks up at him, clearing her throat. If she feels the same understanding he does, she doesn’t show it. “Do they end up together?”

“I have no idea,” he answers honestly. She doesn’t look surprised.

Jyn hands the datapad back to him without a word and he takes it, his hands touching the places her hands touched. It shouldn’t feel like a connection, so insignificant it is, but – it does. Cassian hates himself for his weakness.

“My mother used to have it in print, along with some of the author’s other works,” he says, anything to distract himself from the utter presence of her.

He sounds reminiscing, thinking back to days when the weather was gentler, and his mother would sit beneath the great pine tree in their backyard with a tattered old book in her hand. Their shelves had been lined with a dozen others that she bought or borrowed from the local library. She liked to collect them. He would stand at their back door to peek at her curiously and she would look up and smile, and he’d think that he had the prettiest kindest mama in the entire universe. She’d beckon him closer and he’d sit on her lap as she read aloud to him, words and stories he didn’t fully understand, but swore to learn when he got older. Sometimes, his father would wander outside and smile at them fondly as he worked in the garden.

It had been, save for Jyn, the best days of Cassian’s life.

“From the library she worked at?” Jyn asks, and he’s silent for a moment as he tries to remember what he was saying. Right, the books, the library. He nods.

“They were her favorite. Probably gone now.” He says it as detached as he can, ignoring the emptiness those words make him feel. But Jyn was never someone he could fool.

She watches him with a quiet considering look. He wonders what she’s searching for.

“Don’t you want to something for yourself?” she asks, and he has no idea what she means or where it came from.

Sensing his confusion, Jyn adds, “I mean, outside of the Republic. Outside of this political peace. Don’t you want to do something else?”

Cassian doesn’t want to go down that rabbit hole right now. He shakes his head, feigning ignorance. “Like what?”

“Anything.”

He lifts a shoulder, as nonchalant as he can. “I don’t know what else to do.”

_This is all I have._

He doesn’t know what he wants, or even worse, who he is. Who he’s meant to be. For the better part of his life, he’d been a myriad of covers and false identities, stacked on top of the real Cassian Andor who slowly suffocated under their weight. He’d been good at what he did, but it had a price. To become someone else as easily as he could, you had to give up parts of yourself. Parts you never got back.

In many ways, Jyn had helped him remember but it hadn’t been enough. When all those masks fell away, worthless after the war ended, he quickly found that whatever was left of him wasn’t enough for a galaxy at peace. All he could offer Jyn was a life in halves and even he couldn’t blame her for deciding that wasn’t enough.

“I think you deserve something more,” she tells him, sincere as she gazes into his eyes. For a second, he almost believes her.

The spell breaks when there’s a clatter from the back of the bistro. Cassian is startled to look around; he’d almost forgotten where they are. Jyn looks down at her hands while he takes a deep breath to compose himself.

“Thank you for meeting me. It was… good to see you,” he tells her and surprises himself by meaning it. Not that he’d tell her anything he doesn’t mean; they agreed long ago to give each other the courtesy of honesty. Still, he didn’t expect the afternoon to go so smoothly and he finds himself calmer than he’s been for years. This is what he needed; a goodbye that was quiet and amicable and not tainted with anger or heartbreak. One last memory, a proper ending to their story.

She keeps her eyes on her hands folded in front of her, quietly asking, “Will I see you again?”

“I don’t know,” he answers honestly. He’s leaving in a couple of days and he got what he came here for. He has no reason to seek her out again.

But she looks up at him, a flash of bravery in her eyes. “Well, if you want to… I’ll give you my address.”

And perhaps he’s still a fool when it comes to her, but he nods.

* * *

 

It doesn’t take long for the doubt to set in.

The questions are running on loop in his brain, _“Was it enough? Was it closure? Can I ever let her go?”_

Cassian wishes he could turn off his mind. He’s felt so good about it that day. It felt like it was enough. But while he’s glad to part with Jyn on better terms, there’s still… _something_ sitting on his chest.

It feels a lot like hope.

Rebellions are built on hope and he’s always had more than enough of that. He learned to have it the same way he learned to put on a different face for different people.

It had kept him alive and now it keeps his love alive. Maybe it’ll never let him move on.

A second chance.

Cassian never let himself entertain those kinds of thoughts, except he’s seen Jyn and he’s caught glimpses of that familiar regret. He’s seen her face reading aloud the passage from his book.

If there’s not a part of her that feels the same, then he never truly knew her. And he is sure that he did. So he has to know, he has to know –

Cassian sits up in bed to glance at the chrono on the nightstand. It’s late. Far too late to be visiting one’s not-technically-ex-wife but he’s leaving tomorrow. He has Jyn’s address noted on his datapad and he can take a walk to cool his head in the fresh night air and decide if he should head towards her place or…

He puts on his shoes and walks out into the streets. He checks his datapad for her address and he only pauses once he’s standing in front of her door, unable to recall much from the journey here. He knows that if he knocks, he risks shattering the delicate peace between them.

 _Don’t do this,_ he tells himself. _You’re going to ruin it._

His hand is poised to knock, and for once, he listens to his heart. Thump, thump, thump. A soft rhythmic sound, a direct contrast against his heart beating wildly.

There’s no answer and only silence from inside. Cassian quickly begins to wonder if he’s made a mistake. She’s not home, it’s late, maybe she’s sleeping, maybe she’s with someone else – _Force, what am I doing here?_

But before he could convince himself to turn around and leave, the door opens and Jyn stands there, wide eyed in her pajamas.

He holds out his arms helplessly. “I don’t know what I’m doing here.”

Jyn sighs and steps aside to let him through without a word. The shock on her face fades away and what remains is a weary acceptance.

Silence. It’s awkward, hovering between them like a foul smell in the air. Cassian knows he should say something, he’s the one who barged in here unannounced, but now that he’s in front of her, all his clever words escape him. He prides himself on knowing how to say the right thing at the right time, the exact opposite of Jyn who struggles with her words like a child who was never taught the proper use of language. But with her, he understands what it must be like for her, confused and tongue-tied.

Maybe they mirror each other unwittingly, he wonders with some dry humor, maybe they take on each other’s qualities and morph it into their own. It makes sense somehow; it’s always been hard to tell where she began and he ended.

Cassian glances around her apartment. He identifies what seems to be the living room, a doorway leading into the kitchen, and two brown doors. Small but comfortable. Cozy. A far cry from his own sterile undecorated apartment. Jyn actually lives here, has made it her home.

 _It’s nice,_ he thinks but the words die on his throat. Jyn wouldn’t appreciate pleasantries or small talk, even if he means it, and truth be told, he has little patience for it himself.

She scratches the back of her neck, shifting on her feet. “Do you want something to drink? Caf, water? Rum?” she adds the last part with a little teasing smirk.

Cassian’s lips twitch. He’s not thirsty but he suspects it might put Jyn at ease. “Water is fine.”

“I’ll be right back.”

She heads to the kitchen and Cassian takes a seat on the couch before a little glass table. He tries to get his thoughts together but all he can think is that there are no pictures on the shelves or hanging on the walls anywhere. He wonders if she has anyone to count on here. There’s the old lady he met at the bistro, but he has no idea what’s her connection to Jyn. Is she lonely? Does she have friends, a lover, maybe?

Jyn is not gone long, handing him a glass, and he takes a sip out of courtesy. Maybe it’s the place, maybe it’s hour, but the easy comradery of that afternoon has slipped away.

“So,” she says, and remains standing in front of him, hands on her hips. She doesn’t seem stern, just… grim. He sees the icy dullness of her eyes and it makes him uncertain.

“Jyn,” he says, a little desperate. There’s a part of him that can’t stop saying her name. He hasn’t said it in a long time, not aloud, and he’s missed the way his mouth shaped around the word.

She shudders, closes her eyes. “Don’t do this to me.”

“What?”

She opens her eyes and looks at him, a little desperate in her own way. Pleading with him, though for what, he’s not sure. “You ask me to let you go, and I do. Now you’re here, saying my name like – like – like _that_. I can’t take it! I don’t know what you want.”

“What about what you want? You gave me your address hoping I’d come here.”

She lets out a shaky breath but doesn’t try to argue. “Do you think this is easy for me?”

Once upon a time, he might have said yes. That she was over him in a way he couldn’t get over her. That’s what he told himself, at least, to quell his longing. _She doesn’t want you, so you shouldn’t want her. It’s pointless._ But he can see now that it’s not the case.

“You’re right,” he sighs. “I’m being unfair.”

“You’re allowed to be mad at me, you know,” she says, a little pitiful. “I did leave you.”  

And he is, maybe, but this is beyond that. He knows now that she didn’t mean to abandon him, and he knows he could let go of his anger. Maybe learn to trust her again, someday. But she has to be willing and he’s not sure how to get around to asking that. Some childish part of him feels like she should be the one to initiate any reconciliation because he’s the injured party but that’s not exactly true. They both hurt each other in those last few months. And Jyn is skittish, scared of rejection. He’s not exactly giving her clear signals here.

“I don’t know how to act around you,” he admits, at least a partial explanation for his mood swings. He pauses before glancing up, locking eyes with her. “I never did. Even when we were married. There were so many barriers between us, I never knew what was allowed.”

He can tell that hurts her but it’s the truth and he won’t give her a lie. There’s nothing to gain from hiding things anymore. Jyn never let him all the way in, and he was understanding and sympathetic, but after spending years together, it hurt.

She squeezes her eyes shut, a pained frown twisting her face. She’s very still, her shoulders tense. He used to reach out when she got like that, rubbing her stiff skin until she slowly uncoiled. A touch, worth more than words. But that’s long gone.

“I wish you told me that when we were together,” she says at last, keeping her eyes closed.

He’d tried. Not so much with those words but he’d tried to lead her to it. He’d told her of his parents, his sister, their death. He’d told her about the first person he killed, far too young, even as he was terrified to find judgement or disgust on her face. There’d been none. He never expected anything in return, but he’d hoped that secrets of his own would encourage her to confide in him.

Of course, he never told her how much it stung when she kept her walls up around him so maybe he hadn’t let her in either, not where it mattered. He’d done it all in the name of being patient but perhaps he should have seen the line they crossed somewhere. Perhaps he should have put his foot down and demanded she stopped keeping her distance from him. They were married, for fuck’s sake, they shouldn’t have been so uncertain about each other. But he often wondered if she regretted that too, marrying him.

Cassian lets out a sigh.

“I was afraid to ruin it,” he admits quietly.

She opens her eyes now, a flicker of anger flashing through them.

“Ruin it? We were married!”

“And you were one foot out the door the whole time, ready take off any second! And you did.”

The last bit is more forceful than necessary, a cruel dig that he instantly regrets when her face contorts in pain again. This is how it always began, the arguments that plagued the last few months of their relationship. Defensive, closed off, fending off the blame. He can feel them fall into the old routine so easily that it worries him, and he knows he has to fix it.

He gives her a quick onceover and realizes that what she’s wearing as pajamas is an old T-shirt of his. Green, a little worn, last seen just before she left. He’d wondered about it for a while, then forgotten all about it. The culprit is clear now; she saved it for herself. It’s a curious thought, especially that she seems to be wearing it now, years after their separation. Is it because of their reunion or does she regularly wear it to bed? What does it mean for them?

He has no souvenirs of her, he thinks, startled at the realization. No proof to show it was real, no pictures, no old shirts, no fond mementos, nothing except –

Nothing except her wedding cloak that she left behind.

The wedding was an impromptu decision when he was bleeding out in a shuttle in her arms, and Jyn was desperate and afraid of what she might lose. She said the words then, _I love you,_ for the first time, and he didn’t care that he was about to die. He smiled, peaceful, and Jyn later confessed, in a rare moment of vulnerability, that it had scared her more than the blood leaking from his wound. Perhaps that’s what prompted her to it. She swore to him that he wouldn’t die and to prove it, she kissed him and asked Chirrut to marry them. She barely asked for his permission, though he was happy to oblige in what he believed to be his last moments.

He woke up in the med-bay three days later to her tentative smile and bloodshot eyes. They barely talked about it at first, but eventually, he brought it up to make sure she didn’t want to undo it. She didn’t, and he didn’t, so that was it. They filed the official paperworks and they were married.

Later, he wondered if it played a part in their downfall, if they were too reckless in their desperate hope for survival, never considering what might happen if they did survive. They lived in the now and that worked during the war, but they needed something else for peace. Something they never found.

He remembers that Bodhi looked at them like they were crazy when they told him how it happened. Maybe he’d been right. Cassian thinks they didn’t get married for the right reasons, and he regrets that, now. The how of it.

But they decided to stick with it, and though there wasn’t really a wedding or a reception, Cassian had wanted something to celebrate it. They talked about rings but that was an Imperial tradition and it didn’t feel right. They talked about necklaces but Jyn already had one that was important to her. Then Cassian thought of his home planet. On Fest, the couple would exchange heavy fur cloaks, wrap it around each other’s shoulder, a symbol of warmth and protection.

It felt appropriate. Hoth was cold, too, and when they bought the cloaks and wrapped each other in them, Jyn smiled at him softly, shyly, and Cassian had never been more in love with her than in that moment. They made love under the cloaks and held each other tight until morning.

After that, the cloaks hung in their closet, a symbol of their love. Every time Cassian looked at them, he felt at peace.

At least, until she left.

According to tradition, returning the cloak you were given symbolizes divorce. Cassian isn’t sure if he ever told her that part. It doesn’t really matter, she left her cloak behind, and that alone is a message hard to misinterpret.

It’s the only souvenir he has of her, and he hid them behind other shirts and jackets because he couldn’t bear to look at them. So they barely count.

“I don’t think we got married for the right reasons,” Cassian says quietly, lost in his memories. His eyes are fixed on the shirt she’s wearing and Jyn notices, looks down at her chest in confusion. He can see recognition dawning on her face, like she’s forgotten what she’s wearing. Her cheeks seem to redden, though he can’t be sure in the dim light coming from her table lamp.

“We didn’t,” she agrees, ignoring his gaze. “But I did want to make it work.”

 _A funny way of showing it,_ he thinks but doesn’t say. “You never said that.”

“Neither did you,” she says, but it’s matter-of-fact, not defensive.

He shrugs, desolate. Can you miss someone right in front of you?

“So you left. And I let you go. What now?”

“I don’t know.” She sits down next to him, rubbing her hands across her face. It’s a tired movement, a little defeated. Years of fatigue are catching up to them all at once. “How did we end up here?”

It is both a simple and complicated question. He knows the answer, the gist of it, but its nuances are far too intricate to put into words.

“Lack of communication,” he lists. “A lifetime of traumas. And perhaps…” Cassian pauses before he can admit it, “we didn’t want to be happy.”

Jyn snorts.

“You mean self-sabotage?” she says, a touch amused, a touch self-deprecating.

A wry smile twists his lips. “I’ve been known to do that.”

She doesn’t have to agree for him to know that she has as well.

There’s silence, only broken by the noise of the street outside. Jyn lives next to a main road and even this late at night, there’s laughter and music and traffic filtering through the windows. There’s something comforting about hearing the bustling of people outside, knowing that the world always goes on. On the occasions when Cassian makes it back to his apartment, he often finds himself falling asleep to the sound of life coming from outside. After years of living in cramped spaces with others, the noise of the rebellion never ceasing, the quiet is not something he could get used to.

Cassian stares ahead at Jyn’s faded white walls, distracting himself with thoughts like these. He doesn’t turn to look but he can feel her presence next to him as acutely as the soft cushion beneath him. They haven’t been so close together in years – the bistro doesn’t count because there was a table between them and they were surrounded by other people.

Now, completely alone, and so close he merely has to reach out a hand, it’s hard to concentrate on something else. His body and mind betray him, yearning for the contact.

He doesn’t know how much time passes before Jyn speaks up again, and he finally turns to look at her. It does little to ease his longing.

“I think I left because I was afraid if I didn’t... I’d ruin it. You know?” She shakes her head, as if telling herself, _no, of course he doesn’t_ , but presses on. He recognizes her determination from the rare moments she tried, really tried to let him in. “I mean it wasn’t good, those last few months. But we had some good times together before that and I didn’t want to make it worse. Didn’t want to get to the point where I’d think of you and think of the bad. I just wanted it to stay… _good_.”

Her voice breaks on the last word, and his heart aches. Should he reach out, comfort her? He wants to, gather her in his arms and tell her it’s okay, everything will be alright. It’s an old instinct, though he has no right to it anymore.

“It was the best thing in my life, and if I was going to lose it, I was going to lose it before it was ruined forever,” she goes on, and he politely ignores the tears in her eyes. “Does that make any sense?”

He supposes it does, in the way he’s learned to understand how her mind works. It’s very… Jyn.

And he doesn’t feel the lingering resentment anymore. He’s just very tired.

“I get it,” he tells her with a quiet, gentle voice. A forgiveness, of sorts. Maybe he’d never forget but he can forgive. If anyone, she deserves it.

Jyn lets out a small pitiful noise. As her gaze shifts to his mouth, he can feel the air between them changing. From a tense silence to a gentle anticipation. Where’s the harm in one last kiss?

He cups her face, finally brave enough to touch her, and she closes her eyes briefly as she leans into it. It twists something in his stomach to see her melt into his touch. Both pleasant and painful at the same time.

“I wouldn’t have made a good wife,” Jyn murmurs, wistful, eyes opening.

He laughs quietly and without humor. “I don’t think I would have made a good husband.”

Here it is again, their dilemma: do two wrongs make a right?

He wastes little time debating that as he leans in and she tilts her face up and their lips meet again in a soft aching kiss.

It’s no different than what he remembers, though his memory has tarnished the finer details. The way her cheek fits into the palm of his hand, the feel of her eyelashes fluttering against his skin, their noses bumping into each other’s, the weight of her chest pressed against his. He’s drunk on it. Jyn shifts her hand to slide it into his hair as she pulls herself closer, and he wishes his heartbeat wasn’t beating so fast, so he might feel hers. It’s been so long… he almost forgets himself.

Almost. In the back of his mind, he knows it can’t last forever, that they’re on borrowed time. So he tries to commit it into memory in a way he’s never done before, unaware there would be no more touches. He can’t even remember what their last kiss was before she left him. Was it a quick peck on the lips, a good morning, a see you later? He doesn’t know. But he would remember this.

She pulls away, breathing deeply against his mouth. Their faces are close, and after a second, he leans in to press his forehead against hers. She shudders. Eyes downcast, mouth open. The soft light of the lamp casts her face in a warm orange glow and he’s in love with her and always will be.

Perhaps closure is accepting that.

She leans her head on his shoulder, melts into him like liquid. She’s sad and shaken, small in his arms, but the moment is strangely peaceful. He holds her, hand on her back, breathing her in.

“Will you read to me a little?” she asks, so quiet he barely hears it.

Cassian clears his throat to compose himself. It’s an effort and he doesn’t truly succeed, voice hoarse as he replies, “Yeah.”

She stays like that, clinging to him, as he pulls out his datapad and begins to read.

* * *

 

(At one point, when Cassian pauses to take a sip of water, Jyn looks at him with an indiscernible look.

“Do you think they’re going to end up together?” she asks, and he remembers a similar question back at the bistro.

“Probably,” he says this time. “It’s a romance novel.”

She pauses, her mind practically whirring, and he waits.

“Isn’t it crazy to go back to something that didn’t work the first time?”

“Maybe they weren’t ready then. Timing is important.”

She hums. “I guess I get it. I mean, no matter how it ended… he loved her, didn’t he?”

 Cassian swallows. “Yes, he did.”

“And they were happy for a while, right?”

“Very happy.”

She nods, like this somehow reassures her, and tells him, “She loved him too.”)

* * *

 

Cassian wakes up before she does. They had fallen asleep tangled on the couch and they mostly stayed that way, wrapped up in each other’s embrace. Jyn’s head rests on his chest, her breathing slow and even, her hand clutching his shirt. He stays still, content to hold her as he blinks sleep from his eyes. The scene is so familiar, it takes him a couple of minutes to realize where they are. What they are; old lovers saying goodbye.

He should go. He has an evening flight and most of his things already packed, but he would like to get some work stuff in order before heading out to the ship that would be transporting him and his fellow colleagues. But lying here with Jyn is… it feels so much like it used to that he has to give himself a few more minutes to appreciate it. Before she wakes up and they avoid each other’s eyes as they scramble up and say goodbye.

It’s not much but he makes the most of it. Playing with the ends of her hair, listening to her breathing, enjoying the warmth of her body against him.

When the chrono on the table turns to seven, Cassian shifts, gently removing her weight from his chest. She stirs, mumbles something unintelligible as he stands up, then burrows back into the warm blanket.

He stares for a second. She looks perfectly unbothered. Her face is smooth, lacking the usual signs of stress and heartache that he’s grown used to. There was a time that content look was the only thing he lived for.

Cassian shifts on his feet, glancing at the door. He doesn’t want to walk out on her, let her wake up alone with only the memory of last night. A poetic justice, maybe, but a cruel one too.

He still remembers waking up alone that morning, and well… Better not go there right now.

He’s never quite had the inclination to hurt her the same way she’s hurt him. Only in his worst moments, and that was years ago. So there’s only one choice.

He touches her cheek, letting his thumb brush her skin.

“Jyn,” he says as she stirs under his hand, opening bleary eyes. “I have to go.”

“What? Oh.”

Her voice is scratchy and confused before recognition dawns. She’s forgotten too because waking up with each other feels natural. Jyn pulls herself into a sitting position, stretching her hands above her head. Her shirt rides up on her stomach and he tries not to look at her exposed skin because he doesn’t think he has the right anymore.

She gives him a curious glance, perhaps noticing the way he averts his gaze.

“Thanks for reading to me,” she says, voice soft. Her eyes catch his and Cassian nods without answer, throat tight.

She silently follows him to the door, waiting as he pulls on his boots. When he straightens, they pause, unsure where to go from here.

“Jyn –”

“Do you think –”

They both stop, looking at each other before she lets out an awkward laugh and motions for him to continue.

Cassian swallows.

He knows what he needs. He needs to ask her, to know, to finally be sure. If she refuses him, then he’ll know. He’ll know and he can move on.

If she doesn’t…

Cassian takes a deep breath and plunges in headfirst. “I don’t want to say goodbye. I don’t want to leave you again, not if there’s still something between us. Kriff, we both made mistakes, we both fucked up, but we can do better than that. I know I said we didn’t want to be happy but that’s just an excuse. It’s never going to be easy. But we can still make it work, we just have to want it. And I do. The question is do you?”

Jyn barely seems to be breathing, her eyes large, her mouth slightly open, but she doesn’t say anything. Can’t, probably, if her wide-eyed shock is any indicator. That’s okay. He’ll wait.

“You don’t have to answer right now. I’m leaving at seven tonight. Bay three, hangar six. I know that’s not a lot of time but if you want… if you think there’s a chance… anything between us… then maybe –”

He never finishes what he wants to say but he knows she gets it. She cuts him off as she leans up and presses a kiss to his cheek. Then she nods.

She says nothing even as he walks out the door but the lingering hope in him persists.

* * *

 

Cassian waits.

It’s ten before seven, and he’s been distracted all day. Unwittingly, his mind wandered back to Jyn time and time again, wondering if she was going to show up, if she had made up her mind yet, if she was still deciding.

He’s here now, the minutes ticking by, and no sign of her. That doesn’t mean anything, he tells himself, because Jyn often runs late to things.

(Except not to things that matter to her, not to things that are important. He pushes away those thoughts.)

But he can’t quiet the unease in him, and the bone-chilling knowledge, she’s not going to show up.

He curses himself. She didn’t say anything when he asked and maybe he was a fool to think she’d come but –

He felt something. Between them. Something that wasn’t dead, something they could reignite. If they cared to.

He very much cared to.

It’s okay, he thinks, better to have taken the risk. Now he knows, just as he wanted to, and he can let it go. Let it go, because she made her choice, and his hope is spent. It’ll hurt for a while but it’ll be better for him in the long run.

Cassian climbs up the ramp, throwing one last look at the hangar.

She never shows up.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Cassian was a momma's boy, that's my headcanon and I'm sticking to it.
> 
> A couple of notes: the "he loved her, didn't he?" scene was inspired by an episode of HIMYM (I believe it was the season 6 finale.)
> 
> The tradition of cloaks was partially inspired by Game of Thrones. I definitely wanted a Festian tradition and I was thinking about what would be appropriate for an ice planet, how that might influence their traditions, so I figured maybe something warm. Initially I was thinking gloves or scarves but that didn't really feel special, then I remembered the GoT cloaking tradition, and I knew that was perfect.
> 
> There’s some angst in the next chapter, but this is really the worst of it and it's only going to get better from here.
> 
> Thank you for reading! You can find me on [tumblr.](http://captainandors.tumblr.com/)


	3. restart

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Maybe it matters that in this vast galaxy, we found each other again._ _Maybe the real sign is that he asked to try again._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This took a while but in my defense, it's a monster of a chapter. Sorry for the wait but I hope it's worth it.
> 
> Thanks to everyone who commented on the previous chapters <3

Jyn had doubts after she left.

Many dark self-loathing thoughts that followed her for months, telling her she made a mistake, questioning her decision to leave. Their relationship wasn’t perfect, but Cassian was the only one who would ever love her, and wasn’t that worth sticking around for? Couldn’t she learn to be less herself, less explosive, less angry? Couldn’t she try, couldn’t she at least pretend?

Jyn told herself she made the right choice if that was her only reason to stay. Cassian deserved better than someone who stuck around only for fear of being alone. She loved him, of course she did – and that was why she left.

But she couldn’t sleep well for months and she convinced herself it was because the pillow was terrible and the blanket was short and the mattress was softer than what she was used to. The truth was she had learned to fall asleep anywhere when she was eight. The excuse was lackluster after the third month in a row that sleep didn’t come to her eyes – it was the presence of Cassian beside her that she missed. Even at the worst of times, she could count on his steady breathing next to her, sometimes the beat of his heart pressed against her back. They always slept in the same bed and she had forgotten how to sleep alone. Her room was too quiet and her thoughts were free to roam towards places she wished they didn’t.

Cassian had been her only constant and she decided to throw it away and stump on it for good measure. Those were the kind of brilliant decisions she made.

But no matter the end, it wasn’t only bad times. During the war, it was mostly good times. Minus dead parents and Death Stars and life-threatening injuries. Those were the times when their relationship had been thriving. Maybe they’d just been braver, daring, hopeful.

She could love him better when every moment was precious, when every kiss could be the last, when every goodbye could be the end. Maybe it was her fault, the outcome of her broken childhood.

The irony wasn’t lost on her. Was war the only thing that kept them together? Or had she made the biggest mistake of her life?

* * *

Cassian came back into her life like a hurricane, uprooting everything in his wake, and Jyn let herself be swept up in the whirlpool. She stood out in front of the damn thing and demanded to be taken.

She showed up when he wanted to talk, she agreed when he asked for closure, she let him inside her apartment when he wanted more, and she kissed him, kissed him one last time, kissed him deep and slow and longing.

But she couldn’t ask for more. She didn’t have any right to it, even if she was too desperate to reject anything he was willing to offer. She had just about managed to ask if they might occasionally keep in touch when he delivered that speech to her.

 _Start over._ Try again. Make it work this time. Was it possible?

Jyn wanted it, wanted it more than anything in the world.

But there was more to it than just _want._

She had to consider the possibility that she might just be too screwed up for a relationship. And she knew with a painful finality that she couldn’t bear to lose him a second time.

What a coward she was, that her fear kept her frozen in place as the hours ticked by, as her time ran out, even as her heart screamed and _pleaded_ to go. Cassian had made three attempts to reconcile them: he reached out to her at the bistro, he came to her apartment to talk, and he asked her to give them a second chance. Even though he’d been the one left behind. He was brave enough to have his heart broken again.

And she’s too karking scared to show up at the spaceport on time. Too busy agonizing over the decision, head versus heart.

They tried it once, and it didn’t work. Still, Jyn looked at Cassian, and didn’t think of screaming, fights, tears. She thought of home, a tender touch, a steadying pair of hands, coming back for her every time. They had been happy, they really had been. For a little while. It was all-encompassing.

Did she dare try again and break her heart? What if it ended the same way? What if she got everything she ever wanted?

Jyn dashes out her door forty-five minutes before seven and she runs like she has never run in her life. The spaceport isn’t that far, she could make it. She could make it if people would just get out of her way and stop holding her up in the crowd. She could make it if the transport doors didn’t close right in front of her eyes. She could make it if the next one wasn’t eight minutes late. She could make it if they didn’t hold her up by checking her scandocs, running a random security check. She could make it if she didn’t run into a dead-end in the hangar they are currently reconstructing and had to backtrack to take another route.

She could have made it.

Heart racing and gasping for air, Jyn watches Cassian’s ship take off and thinks, _you deserve this._

* * *

Is it possible to love someone so much that it’s harder to think, harder to breathe without them?

It felt like that when she left him. There was a weight sitting on her chest and she slowly suffocated. Mundane tasks became difficult and time-consuming as the loneliness stifled her energy. Sometimes, it was hard to look at ordinary objects without remembering a moment she shared with Cassian. He lived on in everything and everyone, most especially, in her. But as time passed, she learned to ignore the longing until it numbed into a dull ache that she could live with.

When he came back, the tattered bandage was ripped off, the stitches were torn up, and blood pulsated from a wound that never fully healed.

In the end, all her hesitation cost her the one thing she was afraid of most: losing Cassian again. It’s only when she shows up too late, when she watches his ship get further and further away, that she knows with crystal clarity what she wants. That she’s ready. That she’s willing to risk the pain for a chance at happiness.

She remembers Cassian’s dark blood staining her hands when she realized she loved him. How she begged him to stay with her then, how she said the words aloud as a bargain and a plea in one, how she asked him to marry her just to prove that she could treat him well. She wasn’t in the right state of mind and Cassian was correct that their motivation had been wrong. Like now, she’d only realized what she wanted when she lost it, and she acted impulsively on her fear.

That’s the only thing keeping her from finding a flight headed to Chandrila right away. No more making the same mistakes. No more rash impulses. She can’t have this be a repeat of their poor excuse of a wedding.

Jyn takes a deep breath and tries to fight off the daze that settled on her mind. She feels lightheaded from the loss, and maybe this time, she’ll bleed to death.

But first, she’s going home. She’s going to calm down and make sure she’s doing this for the right reasons, and it’s not just the adrenaline telling her to get on a ship and grovel for forgiveness.

Then, she can go after him.

* * *

There’s a knock on the door.

Jyn’s head snaps up, and her first thought is that Cassian didn’t leave. She immediately dismisses the idea, despite the hopeful longing, knowing that Cassian has made his move and the rest is up to her. She stood him up and he’s not going to come back to beg someone who abandoned him twice.

But her heart is in her throat until she opens the door and sees that it’s Hülya from school. Hülya, who was the one to tell her Cassian was on Aria Prime. Hülya, whom she hasn’t seen since that night in the bar, except in class when she tried to talk to Jyn and Jyn ungraciously brushed her off.

Guilt builds in her chest when she remembers that Hülya had tried messaging her a couple of times and she never bothered to open them. She had just wanted to ignore everything and everyone, but especially her schoolmates who probably had a dozen uncomfortable questions for her.

Time to face the music, Jyn thinks as Hülya crosses her arms, all business, no nonsense.

“So you’ve been avoiding us and they sent me to figure out why,” Hülya says without preamble. Jyn always liked how she got straight to the point.

She regards Hülya for a second then steps aside to let her in. She looks around, eyes curiously darting across Jyn’s apartment. Jyn remembers that she’s only been inside her home twice, each time for less than five minutes. She wishes she could say it was unintentional but truthfully, she doesn’t let them come up to her place on purpose. It’s her way of making sure no one gets too close. She has a bad habit of doing that.

Hülya turns to face her, crossing her arms. “So? What’s going on?”

Jyn pauses, opens her mouth to say something, but feels too tired to come up with an excuse. All the heartbreak of the day catches up to her fast. She really just wants to go and lie awake in bed, hating herself.

She shrugs, silent.

Hülya looks like she expected such a response and powers on, undeterred. “Is this about him – your husband?”

Jyn gives her a blank look. “Is that why they sent you?”

Hülya says nothing for a while but then sighs and uncrosses her arms. Her apologetic look instantly puts Jyn on edge.

“Look, I just wanted to say that I would have never talked about him like that if I’d known he was your husband.”

Before Hülya showed up at her doorstep, Jyn had all but forgotten about that. That had never been an issue, no more than Cassian being an attractive man that people sometimes checked out, or even flirted with. The latter was more annoying when they did it in her presence but Jyn could never resent someone for finding Cassian handsome. Before she could say that, Hülya goes on.

“And I mean, you don’t have to worry about me.”

“What?”

“Not that I’m implying that you do, because why would you, _obviously_ , but I just – well, I just wanted to say that I know he’s off-limits. I’d never go after my friend’s husband.”

Jyn feels a little uncomfortable now but judging by how Hülya rambles and clears her throat, so does she. The way she measures Jyn is oddly prying, and it’s clear she wants to say more. Ask questions, probably, curious about the nature of their relationship, curious why Jyn never talked about him, curious why she doesn’t live with him. Curious for answers that Jyn doesn’t have the energy to give. It’s why she avoided her schoolmates in the first place.

Jyn gives a noncommittal shrug at Hülya’s apology, then blurts out, “He left.”

The Twi’lek’s eyes widen in surprise before she tentatively asks, “Do you want to talk about it?”

“No offense but I don’t think we have that kind of relationship,” Jyn says without pause. She knows she’s being harsh to someone who’s just trying to be considerate, but she really needs to be alone right now. Cassian left her, and by right, so should everyone else.

 _You never let anyone in,_ Cassian’s voice rings in her ear accusingly. _Always keeping everyone at arm’s length – even me._

Hülya doesn’t seem upset at her sharp words but she regards Jyn with a knowing, almost pitiful look. Jyn hugs her sides defensively.

“You’re right. But whose fault is that?”

“What?”

“You never tell us anything. We wanted to be your friend, you know. Kriff, I _think_ you’re my friend, even if you clearly don’t see me as one. But it’s not easy to have a conversation with you.”

Jyn tries not to feel hurt. Hülya is probably right, she knows she’s difficult. But it’s hard, hearing it aloud. It’s a slap in the face.

“If you change your mind…” Hülya shrugs, moving towards the door. “I think everyone needs someone to talk to.”

Jyn says nothing as Hülya lets herself out of her apartment but she knows the girl is right. They wanted to be her friend and she didn’t let them. She ran.

She ran from them like she ran from Cassian.

* * *

_He hasn’t been talking to her in a while and she doesn’t just mean literally. Yes, they’ve been silent after another argument as Cassian taps away on his datapad and Jyn sharpens a vibroblade she rightly doesn’t have to use anymore – but it goes beyond that. He hasn’t been talking to her for months. Not about real stuff. Not about things that matter. Not saying what he really means, what he really wants to say._

_She sometimes wonders if he’s just trying to figure out how to tell her it’s over. The fear she feels at the thought burns brighter than fire and often incites another fight. Her sharp tongue and her terror are not a good match. She’s scared and angry and lashes out at him more often than she should._

_She knows she’s not exactly blameless; it’s not like she’s saying what she wants to either. But she can’t bear to expose her heart only to have it broken by the confirmation that yes, he’s done with her. It would be too much, to have the only person that stuck by her leave her in the end. Then she’d know she’s truly unlovable._

_Jyn glances at Cassian sitting in their living room. Something is different tonight. She’s not sure if it’s her or him or some deeper understanding but she knows something has to give. They can’t go on like this anymore._

_“Cassian,” she calls, putting her vibroblade aside. He looks up, keeping his face politely neutral. She walks over, a heavy feeling weighing down on her chest._

_She has no idea how to broach the subject._

_“I’m tired of this.”_

_His expression slips into hurt for a second before it smooths out again. Completely void of anything that would give him away. She hates it when he does that. She wants to know what he’s thinking, what he’s feeling – but she supposes she’s not so forthcoming with that information either._

_“What do you mean?” he says, and she can tell he’s pretending not to understand her. A fat lot of good that will do._

_“I don’t want to fight anymore.” It’s not just the fights, really, but it’s true enough. She doesn’t know how else to say what’s going on between them._

_Cassian lets out a quiet sigh, glancing down at his datapad to turn it off._

_“I’m sorry, Jyn.”_

_“I don’t want you to apologize, I just want us to go back to the way we were.” She’s not naive enough to think they can magically be like that again, but she has to know he wants that too, that he still loves her and doesn’t really want to leave her._

_But Cassian is silent, looking down at his datapad._

_“Don’t you?”_

_She waits. Cassian says nothing and Jyn loses her patience._

_“I’m sick of your silence, damn it! Say something, Cassian, I’m begging you.”_

_He looks up at her, jaw clenched. He’s preparing for a fight, a heavy look in his dark eyes._

_“The way we were wasn’t any better,” he tells her, and she can tell he’s finally being honest, even if she doesn’t quite understand what he’s saying._

_“What?”_

_“Come on, Jyn, don’t you think I know that you hate loving me?”_

_If she let herself dwell on that for a second, it would hurt worse than a blaster bolt. Instead, she throws her hands up in the air, frustrated. She refuses to acknowledge, even to herself, that he’s making a good point._

_“What the kriff are you talking about?”_

_“You hate being vulnerable,” he says, not cruel but ruthlessly honest. “You hate letting people get close. You hate loving people. You would rather erase your feelings for me then let yourself feel it, but you can’t so you stuck around. Truth is, I’m just not sure that’s enough.”_

_Jyn sucks in a breath, reeling back from his accusation as if she was slapped. With wide eyes, she stares at him. Is that what he thinks, that she hates loving him?_

Do you?

_Heart in her throat, she shakes her head. Her voice is weak. “That’s not true.”_

_“Don’t lie to me. Tell me honestly, would you be here if you had a choice?” He searches her eyes, looking for the truth and yet hoping to be contradicted. She can see the pain on his face too and hates herself for it. “If you could choose not to love me. Would you choose to stop?”_

_She doesn’t want to think about that, doesn’t want to know the answer she would find. She wants to take back everything, wants him to shut up and not ask questions like that. Is it too late to go back to pretending they’re okay?_

_But it won’t save them, she knows. It will just be a slower poison._

_“I don’t know,” she chokes out, the most honest she can be._

_Cassian looks at her numbly before he lets out a small humorless huff. She hates the resigned look in his eyes, hates that he looks defeated, hates that this is the answer he expected and the only answer she can give him._

_He deserves so much better, she knows, but she’s always been too selfish to let him go._

_“So where does that leave us, Jyn? Do you resent me?”_

_“Of course not!” she says, raising her voice, almost outraged at the idea. She could never resent him._

_“But you might someday. You might grow to hate me if we let this go on.” He looks at her and he doesn’t bother to hide his feelings anymore. She’s not sure what’s worse, the cold impassive spy face, or seeing the pain she caused. “You have to want to be with me. What’s the point otherwise?”_

_She presses her lips together, unable to give him what he wants. She’d like to reassure him, ease his worries, tell him she’ll change but there comes a point when you have to stop lying. She’s too broken for him. It feels like the beginning of the end._

_She sinks down on the couch and stares at her hands for a moment._

_“I’m sorry I’m not what you’re looking for.”_

_Cassian lets out a disagreeing huff, shaking his head. “I just want you to try.”_

But what if I can’t? What if this is all I’m capable of?

_“I’m not saying I’m blameless,” he goes on as she’s lost in her own doubts, “I’m not saying I’m perfect or without my own issues. But I can’t keep doing this with you, Jyn. I can’t watch us fall apart.”_

_Jyn takes a shaky breath, nodding. “This is good, you know. If we end this now, it’ll stay good.”_

Let’s not ruin it any more than we already have, _she adds in her head. She couldn’t bear it if they grew to hate each other. She has to preserve some of the love they had; it’s what got her out of the war in one peace. For that, she’ll always cherish it._

_“It’s late. We can talk about this tomorrow,” Cassian murmurs but she knows they’re done. Sleep is just an excuse; that’s the kind of thing you say when you’re trying to prolong the inevitable. For one last night maybe? One last time to hold each other._

_She watches him walk into their bedroom with weary steps and doesn’t follow him for a long time._

* * *

Jyn has just finished making two cups of caf when Mrs. Profisac arrives. The older woman accepts the beverage with a grateful smile but regards Jyn with a prying look as they sit down in the living room. Mrs. Profisac is a busybody by nature and she’s always had her questions about Jyn’s past. Jyn put up with it because she was the first and perhaps only person she made a true connection with on this planet. But she evaded answering as best as she could, giving Mrs. Profisac the truth only in broad strokes. _I lost my parents when I was young, I was raised by an old family friend, I joined the rebellion in my 20s._ Nothing too specific.

It never truly satisfied Mrs. Profisac but it kept her from prying further. However, after Cassian’s unexpected appearance, Jyn knows she has some new pressing questions that Jyn would have trouble avoiding. That’s okay. It’s the reason Jyn invited her over in the first place.

She sighs as the older woman continues giving her that _look_.

“Alright,” she says, accepting her fate. “Lay it on me.”

Mrs. Profisac casually lifts a shoulder but Jyn knows her well enough to tell that her nonchalance is fake. “Frankly, I’m just surprised you never told me you have a husband. Not as surprised as I am to find out that you left him, though.”

Jyn looks down at her mug in embarrassment, feeling like a child chastised by her mother.

“It was a mutual decision.”

Or so she had thought. Technically, that’s not even true anymore, but that’s how it lives in her mind. She remembers, with absolute clarity, Cassian saying, _“I can’t keep doing this with you”_ and she remembers thinking it was over. She can’t stand to have the blame on her because it would be admitting that they might have made it if they tried harder, if it wasn’t for her habit to ruin every good thing in her life.

“Oh, either way.” Mrs. Profisac waves a hand, dismissive. Jyn distracts herself with her mug, running her fingers along the edge, back and forth, back and forth. The older woman’s voice is serious when she speaks, all traces of gentle teasing gone. “It seemed to me that he’s a good man. I can tell. I’m a very good judge of character, you know, I was a teacher.”

“Yes, I know. You told me so – many, many times.” A pause. Jyn swallows around the lump in her throat before she says, quieter but with absolute conviction, “He is. He’s a good man.”

“So what happened?”

Personal insecurities. Miscommunication. Personal failures. The war. The end of it.

She can’t say any of that. “I don’t know.”

Mrs. Profisac hums in disapproval. “Oh, I think you do, dear. You called me here for a reason.”

“It wasn’t to talk,” Jyn grumbles quietly, though she admits there are times she wishes Mrs. Profisac would push her just a little harder so she’d have an excuse to finally let it all out. This is one of those times.

“Would you like to know what I think?” Mrs. Profisac asks, ignoring Jyn’s comment as she folds her hands in her lap, ever the proper lady. “I think you clearly still love him. And what an opportunity you have here, my dear. Do you even realize it? You can still _fix_ things. As long as you’re both breathing, it’s never too late for that. Not all of us are so fortunate, you know. Oh, I would do anything just to have one more day with my poor Hubert.”

“That’s not fair,” Jyn groans, throwing her head back at the very obvious manipulation tactic. “Guilt-tripping? Really?”

Mrs. Profisac shrugs, unapologetic. “Whatever works, dear.”

Jyn taps her finger against her mug, lost in her head. Mrs. Profisac puts her caf down and leans across the table to look Jyn in the eye.

“Jynnie, dear,” she begins and Jyn bites her lip to keep from cutting in. The nickname is as atrocious as it was the first time she used it but these days, Jyn has stopped mentioning it. It’s no use anyway. “Don’t be a fool. I know a good man when I see one. And I can see that he loves you just as much as you love him. Why do you insist on torturing yourself like this?”

Jyn could say a lot of things to that but she settles for a noncommittal, “It’s not as easy as that.”

“Of course it’s not. Marriage takes work.” Mrs. Profisac holds out her arm in a pointed gesture. “Did you only just figure that out? Did you think it would be sunshine and roses? Force knows, Jyn, sometimes it’s harder than war. Sometimes we’re not happy. Sometimes we hurt the people we love. Sometimes we have to fight _really_ hard to make it work. You’re smart enough to know that. But whatever your issues are, the only failure is in giving up. Now,” Mrs. Profisac gives Jyn a reprimanding look that she’s sure she had perfected on her students, “you get over there, missy, and you tell that young lad how you feel about him.”

“But I –”

“No buts, young lady,” she says sternly, and not for the first time, Jyn wonders if this is what it’s like to have a grandmother. She doesn’t know if Mrs. Profisac ever had any grandchildren of her own; you don’t ask about people’s families in polite conversation anymore. Either way, she certainly likes to meddle and give unsolicited advice a lot. “What do you have to lose?”

“I was just going to say,” Jyn pauses as she puts her mug down on the table, taking the time to build up to her confession, “that I already packed my bag. I talked to Belbe and I turned in all my assignments for the semester. Everything is taken care of. I’m leaving tomorrow. And I was wondering if you’d look after my apartment and water the plants while I’m gone.”

Mrs. Profisac stops, looking shocked for a moment, and Jyn allows herself a moment of satisfaction for having surprised the woman. It’s not so easy to manage. Then she breaks into a smile and Jyn, through the nerves in her stomach, smiles back.

* * *

She had a lot of thinking to do after Hülya left her apartment two weeks ago – full-blown arguments with herself. She considered the pros and cons; she convinced herself she should go after Cassian, and she talked herself down two minutes later.

She thought, _I should have been able to get there. There was time. But it was as though everything in the universe was trying to stop me from reaching him._

She wondered, _Is that a sign?_

She told herself, _I’m smarter than to believe in signs._

She pondered, _Maybe the real sign is Cassian showing up on the planet I live. Maybe it matters that in this vast galaxy, we found each other again._

She decided.

_Maybe the real sign is that he asked to try again._

It wasn’t an easy decision to make; not for the lack of love, but for the lot of fear. Still, she couldn’t forgive herself if she let Cassian believe he didn’t mean anything to her.

Jyn had made her choice. She was not going to let her fear define her anymore.

* * *

She travels across the galaxy to make up her mistakes to Cassian.

She knows that’s not enough but it’s a start.

* * *

That start begins with Kay.

Jyn arrives on Chandrila without problem, though she spends the entire flight agonizing over what she’s going to say. She’s bad with words, _obviously_ , but that’s not going to be an excuse anymore. If they’re going to have any shot at making this work, she’s going to have to work on her communication skills. What she says to Cassian next might be what determines the rest of her life.

Of course, it occurs to her that Cassian might take one look at her and turn her away, but it never occurs to her that he might not be here by the time she arrives.

She’s not worried when he doesn’t open the door. Cassian is a workaholic, and even when they were together, he spent some late nights at his workplace. Something tells her that might be the case now, having little incentive to come home to an empty apartment. But when she turns to walk away and find him at his office, an old neighbor, exiting her own home, gives her a gentle smile and informs her that Cassian moved out over a week ago.

Jyn tries to ignore the awful feeling in the pit of her stomach, as well as the pitying look her old neighbor is giving her. So he moved apartments. It’s not that shocking, given what happened between them on Aria Prime. Frankly, she’s surprised it had taken him this long to leave their old home behind. Jyn would have been out of that apartment in less than a week if she were him.

Still, she’s not going to give up so easily. She makes the short walk to the Republic headquarters, up to the sixth floor where his office is located. She hasn’t been here for two years, but everything is exactly how she remembers it, down to the flower pots decorating the spacious white hallways, and the receptionist sitting at her desk in the middle of the foyer.

“Mrs. Andor,” the receptionist says with surprise coloring her voice and Jyn blanches. She never took Cassian’s name and most people knew her as Lieutenant Erso from the war. But Mora Pax only knew her as Cassian’s wife who occasionally dropped by to see her husband, and Jyn wasn’t sure the woman even knew her first name. So when she visited Cassian at work, she became Mrs. Andor.

Jyn didn’t really mind at the time. Now it feels like salt in the wound, a cruel reminder of her life _before_.

Before everything went to shit, before she screwed up her marriage, before she left Cassian and became Jyn Erso, lonely woman living for her career.

Jyn gives Mora a quick nod and hurries along before Mora could open her mouth to ask the questions Jyn knows are coming. She’s not here for anyone else but Cassian and she doesn’t have time to waste. Jyn feels Mora’s stare burning a hole into her back but doesn’t turn around.

Luckily, the hour is late, and few people are still loitering around in the hallways. That suits Jyn just fine – less chances of running into old faces with their pitying looks and thousand curious questions.

Of course, the old familiar face she does end up running into is the one who probably holds the biggest grudge against her.

“Jyn Erso.”

Jyn stops, briefly closing her eyes in what passes for a hopeless prayer.

“Kay.” She nods at him, squares her shoulder. Better to get this over with. “I’m here for Cassian.”

“He’s gone,” Kay tells her, as matter of fact as ever. Still, she thinks she can detect a hint of disdain in his tone. Perhaps it’s just her imagination. He is, after all, incapable of expressing human emotions – but somehow, that never stopped him before.

“Where?”

“I don’t think that’s any of your business.”

 _Here we go,_ Jyn thinks before she gives him an annoyed look.

“Come on, Kay, I came all this way to talk to him only to find out that he moved out of our – his apartment a week ago. The least you could do is tell me where he is.”

Kay considers her words for a second, his photoreceptors circling her as he processes this information. Jyn remembers the first time they met, and how the giant ex-Imperial droid was possibly the only person who annoyed her more than Cassian. (Excluding Davits Draven, of course.) He hadn’t been her biggest fan either – if she recalls, he believed she’d shoot Cassian with his own blaster and take off without them (not an unfair assumption, she has to admit.) But after Scarif, she figured they could learn to get along. He was Cassian’s friend and Cassian was…

Cassian was home.

Since the moment they shared in the hangar of Yavin IV, he was home. If that meant Kay would have to be part of her newfound family, she’d deal with it.

But they never got around to rebooting the droid, and now it’s probably too late for any sort of amicable relationship between the two of them. Unless Cassian himself forgives her for hurting him. Jyn remembers that K2 had been fiercely loyal, and she knows he’ll never accept her without Cassian’s approval.

In a way, she’s almost glad for that. Cassian deserves someone like him in his corner. Someone to look out for him, even when she didn’t.

Kay gives a whirr that passes for a sigh. “Cassian turned in his official resignation four days after he arrived back from Aria Prime. He left the planet shortly after. He’s not coming back.”

Jyn’s stomach twists with dread.

A wretch in her plans. _But,_ she tells herself, taking a deep breath, _it’s not completely unsalvageable yet._

“You didn’t go with him?” she asks, a little surprised.

“We’re not interconnected.” Jyn says nothing but stares at him with her eyebrows raised. Kay caves. “I’ll be joining him in a few weeks.”

“Where did he go?”

“I’m not authorized to share that information with you.”

“Kay –”

“I was rebooted,” Kay cuts in, and he sounds positively reproachful, “to find out that not only did you marry Cassian, which is an unreasonable idea to begin with, but you also left him and broke his heart. If I was around, I would have warned him that would happen. To make up for this, I will do everything within my power to make sure it doesn’t happen again. So you’ll forgive me if I’m not keen to disclose his location to you at the present time.”

Jyn doesn’t even know where to begin with all that. The karking droid always has to make it hard, doesn’t he?

“Kay, I’m still his wife.”

“Interesting. You haven’t acted like it. Where were you when he was coming down with the flu, sick and miserable? Where were you when he worked himself to exhaustion every day until I forced him back to his apartment for his own sake? Where were you –”

“Alright!” Jyn interrupts him, having heard enough. She’s not in the mood to listen to a security droid lecture her on how she’s failed as a wife. She feels bad enough as it is. “That’s not fair. Cassian and I both had our part in – you know what, I don’t have to explain myself to you. Where is Cassian?”

Kay lets out a judgmental whirr and turns around. “Goodbye, Jyn Erso.”

“Fine!” she calls after him, desperate to make him stay. Kay is probably the only person who can tell her where Cassian is. If she has to suck up to the karking droid, so be it. “I’m here because Cassian wanted to start over. And I didn’t make it to the spaceport in time.” She pauses, shifting on her feet. “I feel horrible about it.”

Kay turns back, assessing her sincerity: her arms crossed across her chest, her eyes straying to the floor, her teeth biting down on her lip. He can look all he wants, she’s being honest. And as vulnerable, as uncomfortable as she is, she knows she has to start owning up to the truth if she wants Cassian to ever forgive her.

“That explains his withdrawn erratic behavior after his return,” Kay begins, thoughtful. He sends a cold look her way. “Once again, you have let him down.”

“Gee, thanks. It wasn’t my fault. I tried, okay! I’m here to make it right.”

“How?”

“By telling him –” Jyn pauses, the words burning her throat. Her voice catches. She looks down at her shoes, eyes stinging. _You have to start somewhere, Jyn._ “By telling him that I love him and I miss him. And I want a second chance too.” She looks up at the droid, trying to convey her sincerity, her longing. She doesn’t care if she looks desperate. “Kay, please, I need to know where he is.”

There’s a moment of silence and Jyn believes she’s almost gotten through to him.

Then –

“I’m not inclined to share that information with you if you’re only going to hurt him again.”

“How many times do I have to tell you –”

Jyn stops abruptly, seeing the futility of their argument. Her rage burns out.

“You’re a good friend, Kay,” she tells him instead and she surprises herself by meaning it. She tries not to sound defeated. “I’m glad you’re looking out for him.”

“Someone had to.”

“Yeah, well… I like to think I did my part in the war. I had his back. I would have died for him.” She pauses, a tired sad smile playing on her lips. “I still would.”

Kay lets out a noise that sounds eerily close to a sigh.

“Will you give your word that you won’t break his heart again?”

Jyn looks up at the droid in surprise, something like hope unfurling in her chest.

Hope is a dangerous thing. It can destroy you if you believe in it too much.

But it’s something Cassian taught her to have. If this is what destroys her, it’s only fitting.

“I won’t,” she swears, eager to say anything that would convince Kay to tell her where to find Cassian. “Whatever he wants, I’ll give it to him.”

“I will hold you to that promise, Jyn Erso,” Kay warns her, and she has no doubt he means that. “He’s on Ord Mantell. But I would hurry if I were you. He’s only passing through.”

Jyn smiles, genuinely grateful.

“Thank you, Kay. Thank you.”

* * *

Jyn misses Cassian on Ord Mantell by four days. She finds his trace by recognizing one of his cover names when she asks around for him and discovers that he left on a transport ship headed to Genassa. She heads there as soon as she can but finds him gone by the time she arrives.

This goes on.

Jyn follows him across the galaxy for three weeks and the closest she gets to catching him is by forty-five minutes. That time, she pummels the pillow in her hotel room as she waits for a transport, furious at the universe for keeping her away from him. Furious at herself for always missing him, starting with that first time on Aria Prime.

She longs for him, all that pent-up frustration like electricity under her skin. She touches herself, almost violently, comes with a shout of his name on her lips. It does little to satisfy her, and she stews in silence, her frustration growing.

Eventually, she picks up on where he’s headed. Studying the galaxy map and the pattern he’s been travelling, she realizes his path leads to the Atrivis sector in the Outer Rim with a small forgotten ice planet. Fest.

It’s almost embarrassing that she didn’t realize it sooner. Cassian is going back to his roots.

* * *

Jyn finds him on Fest standing in front of the paperback collection in the Great Festian Library and breathes a sigh of relief. Finally, he’s here. It had been a long trip but worth the trouble. She can tell him how she feels.

She takes a moment to watch Cassian. His back is to her, running his fingertips over the spine of the books on the shelf. Frankly, she’s surprised there’s any printed books left after the war. Fest had been savaged by the Empire; it’s impressive that these copies weren’t ransacked or rounded up and burned.

Cassian glides his fingers along the shelves, unaware of her presence. She knows this is a moment of true distraction; normally, she cannot manage to sneak up on him. His touch seems reverent (so like the way he used to touch her) and she remembers Cassian saying that his mother had collected printed books. Her heart constricts.

This is important to him and Jyn doesn’t want to make the moment about herself. She turns around and walks away.

* * *

She picks a table for herself two floors down in the small café they opened in the library. She has a good view on the stairs, so she’ll know when Cassian is leaving. She pulls out the holobook she randomly picked up earlier and waits.

She catches sight of him about forty-five minutes later as he’s moving down the escalator, arriving on her floor. Jyn tenses, preparing to put her stuff away and run after him but he stops to buy a cup of caf as well. When he turns away from the counter after ordering, Jyn locks eyes with him.

His face goes cold and detached in a second. Her stomach drops with dread, but she braces herself. She didn’t expect him to be welcoming.

To his credit, he does approach her instead of turning away.

Jyn’s throat is dry and her voice is scratchy, but she manages a quiet, “Hi.”

Cassian’s face is a closed book but his grip, wrapped around his cup, is tight.

“We should stop meeting like this,” he says, perfectly neutral.

A wry smile playing on her lips, Jyn shakes her head. “I’m not here by accident.”

Cassian lets out an exhausted sigh that says he figured as much. He sits down across her, folding his arms on the table.

“So why are you here?”

Jyn swallows, heart pounding. The carefully prepared speeches flit away. There’s nothing left but the truth – she may not be good with words, but at least she can give him that.

“I do,” she says, quiet but certain.

“What?”

“You asked me if I wanted to make it work with you. I do.”

Silence.

Cassian lets out a disbelieving bark of laugher. He holds his hands up. “Far be it from me to criticize but don’t you think you’re a little late?”

_I hope not._

Jyn fidgets under his stare. It’s not cruel, exactly, but it’s cold. Angry. _He’s hurt,_ she tells herself. _That’s all. He doesn’t hate you. He couldn’t._

“I showed up.” She soldiers on, ignoring her instincts telling her to run. Running is what got her here. Being too afraid to be vulnerable is what destroyed them. She can’t make the same mistakes anymore. “I was there – I… I watched your ship take off.”

Cassian shifts in his seat. There’s a glimmer of surprise but still, he’s not impressed.

“I didn’t see you.”

“I _was_ late,” Jyn concedes, lacing her fingers together. She doesn’t want to make excuses about the crowd and the transport – that’s the easy way out. Truth is, she did leave at the last possible moment so that’s on her. “But I was there.”

Cassian considers this for a second. He’s more curious than cold now but Jyn knows she hasn’t gotten through to him yet. Not before he hears the whole truth.

And he knows exactly what to ask.

“Why were you late?”

Such a simple question. It makes her heart stop.

_Honesty, Jyn. Honesty._

She takes a deep breath and forces herself to meet his eyes before she admits the truth. “I wasn’t sure if I wanted to start over.”

Cassian leans away from her like he’s been slapped. In a second, he’s pulling up his walls, he’s pulling away from her, and if she doesn’t say anything now, she’ll lose him for good.

Desperate, she reaches for him across the table and grasps his hand before he could get up.

“But not for the reasons you think! I love you, Cassian, I always have. You know how much I still love you.”

“No,” he says, quiet but strained, and her heart pangs. “I don’t.”

“Okay,” she says, voice small. “Well, I’m telling you now. I’m telling you now. Because you need to say these things while you still can. And because you’ll always be the love of my life.”

Jyn pauses to gauge his reaction. He says nothing and he’s unnaturally still under her palm – but he’s not pulling away and she’ll take that as a win.

She holds his gaze steady, willing him to see her sincerity.

“I wasn’t sure because I was scared. I was scared to lose you again. I know it’s stupid, but Cassian, the first time nearly killed me. And I’m a self-preserving woman, as you know.”

That actually gets a quirk of the lips out of him and Jyn’s heart soars. She returns the small smile, her fingers tingling where she’s touching his.

“I’ve been chasing you across the galaxy for three weeks. I left behind my job, I left behind school.” Cassian’s eyebrows run up to his forehead, but she continues, uninterrupted. “I fucked up, I know. I always fuck up. You probably deserve better. But I’m here and I want you.”

 _We destroyed our love for no good reason,_ she thinks, heart twisting. All those wasted years were painful to think of. But they can still have a bright future ahead of them. She has to believe that.

Her eyes drift to their hands, Cassian’s limp but warm under hers. She doesn’t want to give him an out but she has to. She has to be understanding. She’s hurt him too many times.

Jyn takes a deep breath before she speaks. This is her moment of sacrifice.

“And it’s okay if you – if you don’t want me anymore. Really, it’s okay.” It would kill her, but she wouldn’t hold it against him. Everyone has a limit. “But I needed you to know this. I let my fears rule my life long enough. I let myself lose you over that. I’m done with it. I’m done running. I’m done being scared. I’m done pretending I could unlove you.”

She knows she was distant with him many times just to protect herself. She’d been cautious and wary. She almost expected him to hurt her – and she chose to hurt herself, rather than let that happen.

Cassian’s question, “ _If you could choose not to love me, would you stop?”_ often rings in her ear. The accusation, the quiet agony is something she finds hard to forget. Worse is knowing that she couldn’t argue with him then because it had been true. Once.

But that has changed.

She’s no perfect wife but she would try harder. They’d work together. They make a good team, after all.

And she knows in her heart that she wouldn’t trade them away for the world. No matter how this ends.

_If you’ll have me, I’ll be good to you, I promise. If you’ll have me, I’ll make it up to you. If you’ll have me, we’ll be happy. Have me. Please._

Cassian is silent, and the seconds seem to stretch on for hours. Her stomach is in knots, awaiting his response. She has bared her heart and she has no idea what else she can say. This is it and she can only hope it’s enough.

Cassian’s eyes soften and Jyn holds her breath. The tension seems to drain away from his body. Slowly, he lifts his unoccupied hand and puts it on top of hers.

* * *

Jyn wants to kiss him.

They’re only in their sleepwear, standing face to face in the motel room Cassian booked, which he graciously offered to share with her, and all she can think about is that she wants to kiss him.

Earlier that day, as they sat in the café, holding hands, Cassian looked at her and said, “Let’s take it slow.”

Which made sense at the time, so she nodded her head. They still had a lot to work on but at least they were on the same page.

Now Jyn is thinking, _how slow is slow exactly?_

Apparently, it’s slow enough that Cassian offers up the bed for her while he plans to sleep on the floor. Ironically, that makes her want him more.

“That’s ridiculous, Cassian,” she scoffs, and she tries to sound confident. “We’re married.”

They had shared a bed before they were even together, for kriff’s sake. There’s no reason for them to sleep separately.

“We can’t just go back to the way we were before,” he points out.

“Of course not. Before didn’t work. This is going to be better.”

They haven’t worked out the finer details yet – the questions of what they do now, where do they go from here, where do they live, how do they make it work? Jyn still has to finish school on Aria Prime and she has no idea what Cassian wants to do with his life now that he’s done with the Republic. All she knows is that she wants to do it together.

That discussion will happen, but they had decided to talk about it tomorrow, forget about the difficult stuff for now. Instead, they came back to Cassian’s motel room and curled up on the bed for hours without talking. She just wanted to feel close to him. She wanted to feel his heartbeat under her palm and his breathing in her ear and his warmth against her skin. It had been too long since the last time they could do that. The silence had been comforting because they both understood what it meant – healing.

And when she had whispered, “Thank you for still loving me,” Cassian kissed the top of her head and offered to let her have the bathroom first.

Now it’s a bit awkward, but Jyn is determined to power through. And she’s not going to let him sleep on the damn floor.

“I promise, I’m not going to take advantage of you,” she adds, playful.

That gets an amused look from him. She remembers she said something very similar the first time they had to share a bed on a mission. That was, what, seven years ago? How are they back to the same conversation, yet so different?

Of course, they _did_ end up kissing that time, but she’s very sure no one was being taken advantage of.

“Alright,” he concedes, nodding his head. “We can sleep together.”

Jyn looks down, hiding her smirk.

“Not like that,” he groans but when she glances up at him, there’s a sparkle in his eyes.

It feels like a start.

* * *

She wakes up around 2 a.m. and he’s not beside her. It doesn’t even register at first. She’s been sleeping alone for two years so the first thing she realizes is that this is not her bed.

Something feels off, and as the memories start to trickle in, she realizes what’s missing. Her fingers reach an empty pillow, his side of the bed still warm. He must not have been gone long. Jyn sits up, trying not to panic. He’s probably just in the bathroom, she tells herself – he didn’t change his mind, he didn’t abandon her.

Cassian would tell her so to her face.

His bag is still in the corner and the clothes he was wearing are folded on the chair. Jyn releases a sigh of relief. It’s not that she doesn’t trust Cassian but –

Well, she wouldn’t exactly blame him if he changed his mind.

He’s not in the bathroom which stumps Jyn for a second. She grabs her coat and puts it on, prepared to go look for him. Clearly, they still have issues to work out because she doesn’t fancy wondering if he left her every time she wakes up alone in bed. But for her own peace of mind, she needs to find him.

She doesn’t have to look for long. As soon as she steps out into the chilly night air, she finds Cassian sitting on a bench outside their room. He doesn’t turn around as she approaches but she knows he heard her exit.

“Cassian?” she calls cautiously, unsure of the situation. Did he have a nightmare, is he having trouble sleeping? Is he having second thoughts? Does he just need some fresh air? “What are you doing out here? You’ll get sick.”

He glances her way but doesn’t quite meet her eye. “I’m fine. Go back to sleep.”

Jyn pauses, assessing the picture in front of her. Cassian’s shoulders are slumped, his gaze drawn down to his boots. His tone is quiet and drained. He’s folding in on himself.

She slowly sits down next to him, biting her lip as she tries to think of the best way to pry him for information.

“Are we going to keep shutting each other out?” she asks, her tone gentle. She’s not going to push if he doesn’t want to talk but she needs him to know that he doesn’t have to pretend with her.

Cassian’s gaze remains downcast, but his lips quirk up for a second. He says nothing and Jyn waits.

“I used to get sick,” he tells her after a couple of seconds. Jyn watches him, still not sure what he needs from her: comfort or just her company? “When I was a kid, I used to love the snow. I’d sneak outside in the coldest of weather just to build a snowman. My siblings were inside drinking hot chocolate and I was in the garden, rolling in the snow. I’d beg them to come play snowballs with me and sometimes, they agreed. My sister was easier to convince than my brother; she had a bad habit of not being able to say no. But many times, it was just me outside, slipping out the back door when my parents weren’t looking.”

Jyn suppresses a smile, imagining a young Cassian sneaking around behind his parents’ back. Evidently, he always had a talent for stealth.

“I was born in the cold, it didn’t bother me. My mom always said that I was born in the middle of the biggest snowstorm Fest had seen in decades, and that’s why I loved the snow. But I’d still get sick and she’d scold me and tell me stop playing outside so much. She was so worried when I caught pneumonia one time, but I couldn’t help it. It’s where I belonged.”

Jyn waits to see if he’ll say anything else but when he stares ahead pensively, she drops her voice into a teasing tone. “I don’t remember you loving Hoth so much.”

Cassian glances at her with a wry look. “There’s cold and then there’s _cold_. Hoth was almost twice as bad.” Jyn watches a fond smile play on his lips. “Still. We had some good times.”

A quiet laugh escapes her mouth. “It was certainly fun, trying to come up with ways to keep each other warm.”

“I remember you getting _increasingly_ creative about that.”

She gives a shrug, memories flooding in. “You have to admit, I was pretty dedicated.” She pauses, growing wistful. “I miss that.”

She’d struggled a long time feeling like an awful person for missing the war. It had been the only thing she’d known for so long that adjusting to a normal life was difficult. Change was difficult; at least the Empire was an evil she knew. But maybe she didn’t miss the war so much as the comradery, the friends she made, the easy relationship she had with Cassian. Funny how those were the best years of her life.

Cassian looks at her with an understanding that makes her breathe a quiet sigh of relief. They were always in synch, two sides of the same coin. Similar but in different ways, intimately connected. Even now, he feels it too. He’s on the same page as her, he gets her, he always has. And maybe she got so used to Cassian reading her like a book, that she didn’t say the things she should have said.

“Do you know why I came here?” Cassian asks after a second.

She has a few theories, but she wants to hear it from him. “Tell me.”

“I wanted purpose. I wanted meaning. I wanted more than what I was doing on Chandrila. Just living day to day, letting life pass me by. It was very lonely.”

He looks at her, the moonlight illuminating the shape of him, casting shadows across his face. Her breath catches at the sight. He looks so very beautiful. Out here in the dark, she could almost believe they’re the only two souls in the universe.

“You’re the one that told me I can have more,” Cassian says, his voice thick. “You were the push I needed.”

Jyn breaks out into a small smile. She had seen he was drowning when he came to her for closure and she wanted to help. It wasn’t good for him, staying where he was. She wasn’t sure it was her place to say so, but she knew he deserved better. He deserved to find something he liked doing, just as she had. She’s glad she told him that.

“And did you find what you were looking for?”

He shakes his head and looks away, but not before she sees pain flickering in his eyes. “Not exactly. Not yet, at least.”

It’s not surprising, though she had hoped to hear a different answer. Cassian had lived for the war for so long, it would take more than a couple of weeks to let it go, to find a new passion. She resolves to help him through it.

“But I found you.”

She looks up to find him watching her, his brown eyes boring into hers. Solemn and melancholy, but with a quiet joy that tugs at her heartstrings. Jyn wants so desperately to be worthy of it.

“I’m pretty sure _I_ found you,” she says, gently teasing. Cassian’s answer is a fond smile.

He looks out into the distance, scanning the darkness with little interest. His breathing is even beside her. He doesn’t speak, and she follows his example. She doesn’t know how long they sit in comfortable silence, but it must be a while. Slowly, the cold begins to seep into her bones, making her shiver even in her thick coat. Cassian looks unbothered, lost in his thoughts, and she begins to wonder if she can snuggle up against him and leech off some of his warmth.

Eventually, he sighs. His voice is quiet when he speaks.

“I wanted to belong again. To the cold. But I don’t. I don’t think I can stay here.” He pauses, and she can tell he’s struggling to put his thoughts into words. From experience, she knows that means he really wants her to understand. He wants to be known. “The Fest I knew... doesn’t exist anymore except in my memories.”

Jyn gives a slow nod, mulling that over. She thinks she knows what he means. For her, home had always been people. Her parents, Saw, the crew of Rogue One. But Cassian had clung to the memory of Fest for years and now he’s realizing it’s not the same place he left behind. It’s just that; a memory.

“I think I get it,” she tells him. “You can’t regain what you lost. Not the same way.”

“No,” he agrees, his voice calm. Still, she can tell it hurts him to admit it. “I can’t claim Fest as my home. This isn’t my home. It’s not the same place I left. And you’re not the same woman who left me.”

Jyn hopes that’s a good thing. She wants to be better, wants to be braver, wants to be someone who can love people and be loved in return. She doesn’t need to be soft or gentle and she’ll always be a little rough around the edges, but she can learn to stop running from her feelings.

“We can’t be the way we were,” Cassian continues. “But we can’t pretend to start from scratch either.”

“So where does that leave us?”

He opens his arm and slips it around her shoulder, tugging her to his side. She goes willingly, resting her head in the crook of his neck.

“We’ll figure it out.”

Jyn closes her eyes, comfortable in his arms. He’s close and he smells nice, his breathing even under her head, his embrace warm around her shoulder. Something she hasn’t _truly_ felt in a long time begins to grow in her chest. It’s a feeling she remembered having when he stood in front of her in a hangar and bared his soul to her with a dozen people watching.

Hope.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Some of the ideas explored in the last scene are heavily influenced by Salman Rushdie's essay of the same title as this fic. It was a big inspiration back when I was still in the planning phase.
> 
> Thank you for reading! One more chapter left.


	4. rebuild

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Husband, wife, those are just words and a piece of paper.” He thinks of the two years they spent apart, he on Chandrila, she on Aria Prime. She was his wife then, too. “It has to mean something.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here we are folks, the last chapter! Whew, I can't believe I finally made it. Thank you so much to everyone who left kudos or comments, they all mean a lot <3 I hope you enjoy this last installment!
> 
> And if anyone's interested, I made an angsty playlist for this fic, focusing on their break up so it's most suitable for the first two chapters. You can listen to it [here.](https://8tracks.com/rebelcaptains/imaginary-homelands)

**I. FEST**

Cassian remembers waking up that fateful morning two years ago without Jyn by his side. Concerning their separation, that is perhaps the most vivid memory of them all. The arguments, the wordless nights, and all the lonely days after she left – they blur together like scenes of a holomovie. In his mind, they’re all the same; just him and his misery.

But you remember the moment you understand that it’s over. It’s a clean break between before and after. And he recalls, with awful clarity, the way his heart sank when he realized she left him. Because in that moment, no matter their problems and their fights and their unhappiness, all he could think was that he’d never see her again.

Never talk to her, share his day with her, laugh with her, kiss her. Never have the chance to find their way back to each other. And that was worse than all the quiet suffering they had endured together.

The melancholy never really left him. But he did get used to waking up alone.

So now he’s almost surprised when he wakes with Jyn tangled up in his arms. They’re facing each other, a hand cradling her waist, and hers wrapped around his chest. Her head fits into the crook of his neck, her legs tucked between his. His nose is pressed against her hair and he forgets to breathe.

The events of the previous night rush back to him: their meeting, her confession, their midnight talk. The way she curled up to him when they finally made their way back to their room. How he fell asleep with his nose buried in her hair.

Waking up next to her again might take some time getting used to, he muses, but it’ll be a much sweeter transitory period.

“Morning,” Jyn whispers against his shirt, her voice clear. She must have been awake for a while. He blinks down at her, rubbing sleep from his eyes.

“Good morning.”

They’ve never been the type to lie around in bed all morning, gazing at each other, but blast if he isn’t tempted right now. They’ve got nothing to do all day, nowhere to be, and he just wants to bask in the familiarity of their closeness before reality sets in. A little more happiness is all he needs and if they get out of this bed, they’ll be forced to talk about things that aren’t going to be easy to talk about.

He knows they can’t avoid it but a big part of Cassian is afraid she’ll shy away or realize how messed up they still are and change her mind. He doesn’t think he could take it at this point.

Jyn lets out a content sigh and Cassian smiles, dismissing his ugly thoughts. _Later_ , he can agonize over it later. He shifts, trying to get his stiff legs into a more comfortable position but the movement brings him closer to Jyn and she lets out a small chuckle that confuses him until – _Oh_. He’s hard.

Cassian didn’t have the problem of morning wood since they first started sleeping together. He screws his eyes shut, resisting the urge to throw a hand across his face.

“Shit. Sorry.”

Jyn laughs and he’d take offense, but she sounds delighted. “Don’t tell me you’re embarrassed. This isn’t the first time it happened.”

“Yes, but…” He trails off, opening his eyes. Jyn’s green eyes are twinkling with mischief. _Slow_ , they agreed to take it slow. Though knowing Jyn, he’ll be keeping to that rule much stricter than she will. “We were together then. And right now, I don’t know what we are.”

A flash of hurt crosses her face but she quickly covers it up and reaches out to stroke his cheek. “I’m your wife.”

He almost melts into her touch. It would be easy, given how badly he’s missed it, but the issue is on his mind now, and he can’t let it go.

“Husband, wife, those are just words and a piece of paper.” He thinks of the two years they spent apart, he on Chandrila, she on Aria Prime. She was his wife then, too. “It has to mean something.”

Cassian sits up in bed and Jyn follows, a little tentatively. Staring at his hands, he tries to put his thoughts into words. He’s gotten so good at staying silent with Jyn that he doesn’t know where to start. Is this what it feels like for her? Kriff, it’s frustrating.

He stays silent and hears Jyn exhale softly before she puts a hand on his shoulder.

“What does it mean for you?” she asks, voice quiet.

What does it mean for him? It means trust, support, loyalty, a warm pair of hands taking care of you when you need it. A partnership. Someone who stays even when things get tough – _especially_ when things get tough.

It means whatever his parents used to have before they were cruelly taken from him. He knows they had been happy, they had been in love. He knows his father used to pick snowdrops for his mother just to make her smile, and he knows she used to peck him on the lips in return. He knows he wants that.

So what does it mean for him? It’s not so much an idea as an image. A warm home he can come back to at the end of the day.

Jyn waits patiently and Cassian struggles to put it into words. Without a starting point, his thoughts drift to the fur cloaks that used to hang in the closet of their apartment on Chandrila.

Like most of his possessions, he left them behind when he left the planet. He left them in the closet without any idea what would happen to them. Perhaps the new owners kept it, given their good condition – or perhaps they threw it out with the rest of his trash. He can’t say the thought doesn’t hurt but he had to do it.

He’d made up his mind to get over her and he couldn’t have cruel reminders of their marriage plaguing him everywhere he went. While he had those, he thought of her as his wife, no matter how long they hadn’t seen each other. But without them – he almost doesn’t feel married.

“Do you remember our wedding cloaks?” he begins, waiting until Jyn hums in affirmative to continue. “Did you know that when somebody gives it back to their spouse, it means they want a divorce? They’re renouncing their cloak and thus their marriage.” He pauses, feeling Jyn’s hand tense on his shoulder. “You left yours with me.”

She’s silent for a long second, then –

“I had no idea,” she whispers, voice frail with sadness.

Cassian nods. “I know but… you still left it.”

Jyn pulls herself forward, angling her body to look at him and put a hand under his chin.

“What does it mean if someone asks for it back?”

Cassian’s heart flutters a tiny bit at the gesture. She seems serious, eager even. But he shakes his head, a bittersweet quirk of his lips.

“After you didn’t show up at the spaceport, I left them on Chandrila.”

Jyn’s hand falls from his face, her shoulders sagging. “Oh.”

“I had to let you go. I was ready to move on,” he says because he needs her to understand even if it hurts. “And dragging those around with me would have been holding onto something that didn’t work. As long as I had them, I would always think of you as my wife.”

He held on to them for so long – he held on to hers too. In a way, it felt like he was holding on for her too, when she had long let go.

“So what are you saying, now that you got rid of them, I’m not your wife anymore?”

“No – I don’t know.” Jyn stares at him in silence and he exhales, caving. “Yes, I let you go. I accepted that we were over. And I just don’t know where that leaves us.”

He looks at her, hoping she’d have the answers, trying to make sense of it all. Hoping she’d guide him. Her green eyes are wide and sad and understanding. With a fluttery breath, she steels herself, pulling herself up straight and cradling his face in her hands.

“We’re together. That’s what we are, Cassian. Together.”

* * *

He’s stepping out of the shower, shirt in hand when the door opens and Jyn walks in with their breakfast.

“Hey, I brought us –” She looks up, stops, and swallows. Cassian is confused when he sees the flush on her cheeks. “Wow, I haven’t seen you shirtless in a long time. It’s a nice sight.”

Cassian looks at his feet, hiding a tiny smirk. Jyn shakes herself off, moving to the center of the room and putting their food down on the table.

“Anyway, I brought us caf too. I wasn’t sure if you still like it sweet because last time you ordered it black, so.” She holds up a sugar packet. He supposes there’s a lot they have to relearn about each other.

He takes his cup with a quick thanks. “I got used to drinking it black. The stress and the loneliness…”

Jyn looks up from where she sat down to dig into their food. Her eyes cloud with guilt.

“I’m sorry.”

Cassian grimaces. He really wasn’t trying to make her feel bad, it was just the truth. And yes, Jyn was part of the reason for his loneliness, but it’s not as though he made any real effort to connect with anybody else after she left. They just have to learn to stop walking on eggshells around each other.

“No, it’s fine. I don’t know why I said that.”

Jyn sighs, lifting a piece of toast to her mouth. “You said it because it’s the truth. You don’t have to hold it back.”

He sits too, nodding. “Alright. Total honesty.”

“Sounds good to me.”

There’s a lull in the conservation as they eat their breakfast, but he can tell from the faraway look in her eyes that something is weighing on her mind. He waits patiently until she brings it up.

“Cassian,” she begins, her voice cautious but determined. “Are you angry with me?”

“What?”

“It’s okay if you are. I just don’t want you to ignore it until it blows up in our face.”

“Jyn,” he begins, frowning, but she interrupts him.

“Don’t tell me what I want to hear. I’m serious, yell at me. Tell me you hate me for leaving. Tell me I’m a quitter, tell me I don’t deserve you. Just don’t hold it back.”

“I don’t hate you,” he says slowly, watching her. Jyn shakes her head.

“There must be some part of you that still resents me for leaving.”

Cassian sighs, pushing his plate away as he leans back in his chair.

“It’s not as simple as that. I know you did what you thought was best.”

“But?”

“But – I guess it’s just the way you did it… that still hurts.”

“Yeah, I know…” She bites her lip, her tone remorseful. When she continues, she talks slowly like she’s feeling out the situation. “Maybe we should get professional help.”

“What?” He frowns, taken aback. “Like a therapist?”

“Yeah.”

“Seriously? You want to see a shrink? _You_?”

Jyn rolls her eyes. “I don’t _want_ to but if it helps us… Yeah, why not?”

And suddenly his fear that things would get tough and she’d run again seems less frightening.

“You’d really do that?”

“Why do you sound so surprised?”

“Because you _hate_ talking about feelings.”

“Cassian.” She leans forward, holding his gaze to convey how serious she is. “I want to make this work.”

“Alright.” On impulse, he kisses her cheek and she _blushes_ , actually blushes. It’s hard to hide his smile. “Let’s do it.”

* * *

After breakfast, sitting at the table and drinking caf, he asks her, “So how did you find me?”

Jyn swirls the liquid in her cup, looking relaxed. There’s no rush, no anxiety – it feels so much like it used to, before everything went wrong between them.

“Your droid is very protective of you. But he did tell me where you were, eventually. You’re lucky to have him.”

Cassian hides a smile in his caf. He’ll be sure to thank Kay once the opportunity arises – both for protecting him and for telling her where he was.

“I can’t believe you followed me for so long.”

Jyn smirks. “Aren’t you impressed by my dedication?”

“Very,” he allows, mirroring her playful tone. He sobers up a second later, tapping his finger against his cup. “But you have a life on Aria Prime.”

She nods, her face serious as well. “Yeah, and I want to finish school there, at least.”

He expected as much, and he has no objections. He’s so proud of Jyn for finding something she likes doing, for following that dream, for bending the world to her will instead of letting it carry her away like he did.

“So will you come back with me?”

Cassian looks up, interrupted from his musings. Jyn misunderstands the startled expression on his face and begins to backtrack.

“We don’t have to live there forever, just until –”

“Jyn,” he cuts her off, calm. “I’m not leaving you.”

Jyn breathes a sigh of relief, a smile curling at the edge of her lips.

“Good.” She trails off and her eyes drop to his mouth. Cassian is acutely aware of the longing in her eyes and his own gaze follows the curve of her lips. He remembers the kiss they shared in her apartment and how he thought it would be their last. He remembers making his peace with it.

Now that they’ve decided to rekindle their relationship, things have changed. That was a goodbye kiss and this… this would be a kiss for second chances.

But they’re both shy and self-conscious and neither of them moves. The question hangs above them – how slow are they taking it? Who makes the first move? Should they already make the first move?

Before he could figure it out, Jyn shakes herself out of her stupor and takes a sip of her caf. The moment slips away, and Cassian allows himself to return to reality.

“Hey,” she begins, as if an idea just occurred to her, “have you finished your book yet?”

Cassian remembers returning to Chandrila, barely being able to look at the karking book. He pushed himself to finish it only because of his loyalty to his mother. It had been one of her favorites.

“Yeah.”

“And?” she asks, curiosity coloring her voice. “Does it have a happy ending?”

This time, Cassian allows himself a smile.

“Yeah. They work out their issues. Get married.”

Jyn smiles too. “Good. I like happy endings.”

“Me too,” Cassian says. Oh, how he likes them.

* * *

Cassian never thought he’d be back here. His heart pounds painfully, his hand clutching Jyn’s tightly, but his gaze – his gaze is firmly fixed on the house before him.

“Before we leave,” he told her yesterday, “there’s something I have to do first.”

And she replied, “Anything.”

That’s how he finds himself standing in front of his childhood home – rundown, unlived, neglected. Nobody had reason to take care of it after his family left, and after three decades passed, it had given itself over to decay. Even if he wanted to, there’d be nothing to fix here, nothing to save. He knew that coming here but it still hurts.

Jyn holds his hand just a little tighter.

Wordlessly, Cassian moves. Putting his foot in front of the other, then the other, then repeat; it seems like such a struggle. In his free hand, he holds snowdrops he picked in the field nearby – where his father used to pick flowers for his mom. They tremble now. He continues walking.

The gate squeaks when he pushes it open, rusty under his hand. He stops again, just for a second, taking a deep breath. He needs to remember to breathe.

“Do you want to go inside?” Jyn asks quietly and he shakes his head, a firm no. He doesn’t want to see how the wallpaper had frayed in the living room, how the stairs to the second floor had rotten, how mice had eaten their way through the walls. He knows the house he grew up in is gone, just a haunting ground for the ghosts of his past – but he wants to hold on to his memories, remember it the way he did as a child.

He’s only here to do what he couldn’t ever do before: say goodbye.

So they make their way to the backyard where the old pine tree still stands and will stand for many centuries to come. Cassian almost smiles; it’s comforting, in a way, to know that some things remain. Perhaps the tree will remember them.

He kneels, dugs a small hole in the ground, pauses. Jyn stands in the background with her hands shoved in her pockets, supportive but knowing he needs to do this himself. Without looking at her, he begins to speak.

“My parents liked old-fashioned things. My mother specialized in books, but my father was an avid collector of anything more than a century old. That’s how they met; my dad owned this little antique shop in the center of town and my mom had her eyes set on one of the rare books in his collection. They got to talking and he found out it was her dream to open a small vintage bookstore one day. He liked that so much, he asked her out right away.”

Cassian smiles a little, recalling the story he heard at least a thousand times from his parents.

“Fest was always slow to utilize new technological inventions, so most of my childhood, I grew up without holonet. Younger generations were leaving the planet by hundreds, searching for a better life. When I asked why we stayed when it seemed like only the sick and the old stuck around, my parents said, ‘Cassian, it’s because time itself stops here.”

Jyn is quiet but he knows she’s listening to every word. Cassian reaches into his coat and retrieves a silver pocket watch. One of the only souvenirs he has of his father. He drops it into the hole. There are no books for his mother; they stay displayed on the shelves of the library, but this is enough.

“When I went by the library,” he continues, choked up, “and told them who I was, they showed me the collection my mom had gathered. They were so happy I came by. Turns out when the Imperial forces arrived, she hid them in the cellar.” He lets out a sound, half a chuckle, half a sob. “They found them after the war when they began renovating. Guess nobody bothered to check the basement of some old insignificant library.”

Cassian hears the sound of Jyn’s footsteps, then feels her hand resting on his shoulder.

“They renamed the library in her honor,” he tells her, pride shining in his voice.

“Sounds like she saved a piece of history for future generations. She must have been an incredible woman.”

 _She was,_ he thinks. She deserved better, like his father, like his siblings. But he had to let them go. He’d remember them – but he couldn’t live in the past and they wouldn’t want him to.

Cassian shovels the dirt back into the hole with his hands, burying the watch with it. Burying his past with it. He places the snowdrops on top, saying one last Festian prayer for their souls. Then he stands.

When he turns back to Jyn, he’s glad, so glad that she’s here, that he doesn’t have to do this alone. He walks into her open arms, throwing his hands around her body, closing his eyes as her fingers slide into his hair.

The snow begins to fall and Cassian cries.

**II. ARIA PRIME**

When they land on Aria Prime, it’s dark. Jyn drags her feet as they walk down the ramp, stifling a yawn in her hand. Cassian, too, is tired from the flight, from the emotional strain of the past few days, and he looks forward to nothing more than collapsing in bed and holding Jyn close to him.

But when they step inside her apartment and Cassian places his bag by the door, shrugs off his coat and shoes, he finds Jyn looking at him with a strange expression on her face.

“What’s wrong?” he asks, stomach churning.

 _No, no, no,_ she can’t change her mind now. He’s already begun hoping.

“Nothing,” she says quickly, her voice too high. She blows out a breath, dropping the act a second later. Old habits die hard – but she’s clearly trying. “I’m just glad you’re here with me.”

“Then why do you look so troubled?”

“I…” Jyn looks around, a helpless shrug on her shoulders, “never thought I’d share a home with you again. Especially not here. Are you sure you’re okay with moving in with me?”

“Why?” He pauses, searching her face, ignoring the fear in his heart. “Aren’t you?”

“No, of course I am. It’s just – it’s not too soon, is it? We said we’d take it slow…”

Cassian lets out a long breath, stepping closer. “Jyn, I was in love with you a week after we met. We had sex right after our first kiss. We were married a year later. For us, slow is still twice as fast as for other people.”

There’s a small amused smirk on Jyn’s lips but she presses on. “Yes, and you said yourself that we rushed the whole marriage thing. I don’t want to make that mistake again.”

Cassian lifts her chin, catching her eyes. “Unless you think it’s a mistake, I’m not worried.”

Jyn shakes her head, relaxing under his touch. Relief floods across her face.

“Well, it would be pretty dumb to let you live in a hotel room when I have all this space to myself.”

“Pretty dumb indeed,” he nods.

Jyn reaches out, touching a hand to his cheek. Her eyes are sober, her voice quiet. Cassian feels naked in front of her gaze.

“I promise I’ll do better this time. You deserve someone good.”

His heart stutters. He turns his head to kiss her palm. “So do you.”

He hopes she knows he means it, hopes someday she’ll believe him. Hopes someday he’ll believe that he can be that someone good for her.

Jyn still holds his cheek, her thumb caressing his skin.

“Can I –” She stops, blows out a breath. “Nevermind.”

“What is it?”

She hesitates for a second, scarcely breathing. Her eyes are dark in the dim light.

“Can I kiss you?”

 _Oh,_ he thinks, _finally._ They’ve been dancing around it since Fest. Slow is slow but this has been lethargic.

A tiny nod of his head is all the confirmation she needs. She leans up, he leans down, and their lips meet in the middle. It’s a gentle thing, a tiny touch of their lips, an I love you without words. Neither of them wants to rush it but he feels the tenderness of her touch and knows she’s giving him a part of herself. Opening her heart to him again. If their last kiss was goodbye, this is like saying _hello. Welcome home._

He realizes he’s not scared when they pull away. Her eyes are shy as she stares up at him – but they sparkle.

“I’m really tired,” he admits and Jyn answers with a huff of laughter.

“Well, you’re still a good pillow.” She takes his hand and squeezes. “Let’s go to bed.”

* * *

Cassian isn’t sure what he’s meant to do now. It’s not that he regrets coming to Aria Prime with Jyn but after a week of twiddling his thumbs while she returned to her job at Belbe’s Bistro, he’s starting to grow restless. He’s visited almost every café in the area, discovered almost every park there is. He finished two books and cooked a three-course dinner for Jyn almost every night.

He cannot keep doing nothing. Jyn still has a semester left at college, starting in a few months, and he can’t stay cooped up inside her apartment the entire time while _she_ goes to school and _she_ goes to work and _she_ pays for their rent and food and bills. He has to do something. But every time he entertains the idea, he ends up back at his original problem – he has no idea what.

When Jyn arrives home that day, he throws his datapad on the couch with a disgusted sigh.

“Hey, what’s wrong?” she asks, removing her coat.

Cassian leans back into the pillows, throwing his hands over his eyes. “I was looking for a job.”

“I take it you didn’t have any luck,” she states but there’s a question in her voice.

“I have no idea what I’m doing.”

Jyn says nothing but he hears her approach, the table creaking as she sits down on it in front of him. Gently, she takes his hand.

“You don’t have to figure out anything right away,” she tells him, speaking softly. “This is temporary. You can take your time.”

He opens his eyes, shaking his head.

“And stay here doing nothing in your apartment like some kind of trophy husband?”

Jyn shrugs, her eyes twinkling playfully. “What’s wrong with that?”

He throws her an unamused glare and she lets out a quiet laugh.

“Jyn, I’m serious. I need to do something, or I’ll go mad.”

“Alright.” She leans back and nods. “So get a job in a café or something. In the meanwhile, you can think about what it is you really wanna do.” She pauses, snapping her fingers as an idea comes to her. “Hey, do you want me to ask Belbe if he can hire you?”

Cassian shakes his head. “No, thank you. I’ll find something.”

It’s embarrassing enough that determined purposeful Jyn is married to such a pathetic loser.

 _You’re not holding her back,_ he reminds himself once more, tries to believe it. _She wants to help you._

Jyn nods again before she practically catapults herself on the couch next to him, wrapping an arm around his shoulder. She presses a few kisses against his throat before she leans her head into the crook of his neck and squeezes her body against his.

“What are you doing?” he laughs but wraps an arm around her fondly. His self-loathing thoughts are momentarily forgotten.

“Just loving you,” she says so casually that his heart swells. Whatever happens in his professional life, at least he has this. And he’s working really hard to believe he’ll always have it.

“I booked us an appointment,” she tells him, still pressed up against each other. They’d discussed going to therapy in more detail and they both agreed to give it a try. Cassian is apprehensive, kriff, so is Jyn – but they have each other. He’s not sure he could go alone. “Next week.”

“Okay.” He leans away just enough to press a kiss to her hair. “We’ll be okay.”

Sometimes, those words of reassurances have to be said aloud for them to believe it.

* * *

Before their first appointment, Jyn is a mess. She flits about her – their apartment, pulling on clothes as she goes, combing her hair through with her fingers. She’s left getting ready to the last second and Cassian watches with mild amusement as she rushes to get dressed. She insisted on taking a shower before they leave – which was totally unnecessary, but Cassian knew she was stalling and he let her.

He’s weirdly calm. It feels like one of his missions; he was never nervous before them. As long as he knew the objective and the means to achieve it, he knew he could do it. He found no sense in panicking over things that _might_ happen – consider them and prepare for them, but never panic.

So it _might_ go wrong, the therapist might not be friendly, they might not be able to communicate, therapy might not help them in the end. He knows all that and more is running through Jyn’s mind right now. He also knows they’ll never prove those fears wrong if they don’t go.

“Jyn” he calls. “We’re going to be late.”

“Just a second.”

“Jyn.” He pushes himself away from the doorframe, walking towards her.

“Have you seen my wallet?” she asks as she struggles with her sweater, looking anywhere but at him.

He takes her hand to still her frantic movements, then reaches up to frame her face once she’s paused.

“Hey, look at me.” He waits until she does, raising tentative eyes up to his face. “I’m not worried.”

“Really?” she asks, surprise coloring her voice.

“Really,” he says and there’s a hint of teasing in his voice. “You probably talked more about your feelings in the past few days than in the entirety of our marriage. We’ll be fine.”

She punches his shoulder, but a begrudging smile plays on her lips.

“I’m serious, Jyn. I believe in you.”

“Alright, mister,” she says, her cheeks growing red. In typical Jyn fashion, she willfully ignores it. “Save the heart to heart for the session.”

But she seems much calmer after that.

* * *

Therapy goes well. As well as it possibly can while dealing with the can of worms that is their life. Their therapist is a soft-spoken middle-aged woman with eyes sharp as a hawk. Cassian feels like she sees right through him when she looks at him and he wonders if that’s a good thing.

She gently guides them through their first session, which is mostly to get to know them. Cassian thought they would get straight to heart of the issue, but she asks them questions about their childhood, their families. They oblige, Jyn more reluctant than Cassian. She’s clearly uncomfortable talking about her parents, talking about Saw, but he reaches between them to hold her hand and she presses through. Somewhere in the back of his mind, he realizes they’re both being as cautious as possible, still wary and a little bit distrustful – but he reasons that this is only their first appointment. It will take some time to learn to be forthcoming on their own.

Jyn smiles at him when their hour is up, a subtle hopeful thing. They book their next appointment and walk out hand in hand.

* * *

They’re quiet on the way home but Cassian is calm. Her hand in his palm and the silence between them is more comforting than any words could be right now. Jyn’s nervous energy from earlier has settled into quiet tranquility and she seems content as well. She idly watches their surroundings, the bustling people as they walk, and he does the same.

When they pass a library two blocks down from their therapist, an idea occurs to Cassian and he hopes he can carry it through.

* * *

Jyn blinks in bewilderment at the flowers Cassian is holding. “What is this?”

Cassian glances down at the giant bouquet in his hands.

They’ve been going to therapy for two weeks and when their struggle to define what they really are to each other came up, their therapist suggested they should start dating again. Relearn each other, rediscover their relationship. Cassian refrained from pointing out that they never really “dated” to begin with. They had a couple of drinks at the rebellion’s cantina once and he fucked her in a really nice hotel room that his cover provided for them another time. Otherwise, the only dates they’ve ever been on were their missions. If that counted.

But their therapist might have the right idea, he decided, and they agreed to go to a little quaint restaurant that recently opened in the area. It’s both a first date and a chance to celebrate his employment at the Aria Prime Grand Library.

“Flowers,” he tells her now as she continues to look at him in surprise. “You know… for our date.”

She takes the bouquet with tentative hands, her head barely visible above the flowers. Maybe he went a little overboard but when he was at the florist, he had no idea what to get. He was bad at this and he wanted the best for Jyn – so he just let the florist chose the arrangement for him. Clearly, that wasn’t such a smart choice.

“Oh,” Jyn says as she balances the flower in her hands and manages to hug it to her side like a baby. “I didn’t get you anything.”

“That’s alright.”

“No, I feel…” she pauses, scrunching up her nose as she looks for the right words. “I _feel_ inconsiderate.”

That’s a new thing they are trying. Communicating their feelings. Especially when they are upset or grateful – to let the other know what they have to work on and what is already working.

_Thank you for the delicious dinner you made. Thank you for waking me up with caf just the way I like it._

_I feel annoyed when you leave your dirty clothes on the floor. Well, I feel like you’re nagging me when you constantly scold me for that._

The point is to use your words.

It’s a little on the nose but they have to start somewhere, and for now, it works. Eventually, he hopes they can leave behind all the painfully detailed descriptions of their feelings, but they aren’t there yet.

So for now, he can only try to reassure Jyn.

“Please don’t,” he tells her, resisting taking her hand only because she’s holding the flowers. “It’s just a little something. Alright, not so little.”

Jyn lets out a brief chuckle before she turns her eyes to the flowers. The colorful arrangement is quite pretty, if a little too much.

“You deserve flowers too,” she mumbles, a little melancholic, while she plays with the petals of a white flower.

Cassian feels his cheeks redden, which seems to delight Jyn immensely if her smirk is any indication.

“Next time, you can get me some,” he tells her.

Jyn bites her lips then nods. “Deal.”

* * *

A month after their first appointment, their therapist finally asks the question Cassian has been dreading.

“And how did you feel, Cassian, when she left without goodbye?”

Cassian takes a deep breath and tries to be honest.

“Betrayed.”

There’s dead silence. Jyn is stiff beside him, her gaze strictly trained on her lap. Their therapist fixes him with a long uncomfortable look, waiting. It’s only years of intelligence training that makes it possible for him to resist fidgeting.

“Would you like to talk about it?” she asks at last when he doesn’t continue.

 _Not really, no._ But that’s what they’re here for and Jyn turns to look at him like she wants to hear his answer. Cassian lets out a heavy exhale. He’s been so happy blissfully ignoring the wookie in the room. Now they have to deal with it. He figures if they get through this, it will only get easier.

But there’s a damn fine line between being honest and knowing that what he’s going to say will hurt her.

“It’s okay, Cassian,” Jyn says, an answer to his unspoken concerns. “We have to stop tiptoeing around each other if we want this to work.”

And so Cassian begins talking.

* * *

It’s the end of a long workweek and part of Cassian wishes they could be home curled up on the couch, watching a holomovie or something. He always prefers to be alone with Jyn than in the company of others, but he’s promised to be here. She wants him to meet her friends and who is he to disagree – even if he worries he would have nothing in common with them.

Part of Jyn’s recovery process is reconnecting with her schoolmates whom she’d apparently fallen out with, and part of Cassian’s is putting himself out there and making connections. It’s the perfect opportunity for both, but as he eyes the bar in front of them with distrust, he can’t help feeling that this is not his scene. Certainly, Jyn is an excellent judge of character so her friends can’t be all that bad, but an old fear tugs at his heart, saying _he_ is not all that good.

As if sensing his thoughts, Jyn gives him a look.

“Come on, you need to stop being so anti-social, you put _me_ to shame. It’ll do you some good. Besides,” she pauses and squeezes his hand, “they’ll like you.”

He sighs and nods, squeezing back. Hand in hand, they enter the bar, and Jyn heads towards a table in the back where five people are already seated. Cassian makes a quick scan of them, noting the way they all seem to be looking at him with curiosity. It makes him feel a bit like a lab animal, but he suppresses the thought and gives them a polite nod.

Jyn, beside him, seems to feel a little awkward too but she gestures towards her friends and says, “Cassian, I’d like you to meet my friends. Everyone, this is Cassian. Cassian, this is Hülya, Atike, Tahani, Tamir, and Mika.”

They all give him a nod or a friendly wave, and Cassian tries to seem confident. Luckily, he has a lot of practice of that. Once they’re seated and their drinks are ordered, – a beer for Jyn and soda water for Cassian – it begins.

“Jyn, I can’t believe you just up and got on a ship like that,” says Tahani, a mixture of awe and admiration in her voice. “It’s so romantic!”

Jyn shrugs, sending a quick glance his way. “It just felt like the right thing to do.”

“I’m glad it worked out for you,” says Hülya, whom he remembers from the meetings at the Capitol Building. Her tone is intentional in a way that makes him think there’s a hidden meaning there directed at Jyn.

Jyn looks at her, a bit shy, and something passes between them that Cassian can’t quite decipher. After a moment, Jyn nods, with a little smile on her lips, and she looks much more relaxed after that. He squeezes her hand.

“So how did you two meet?” Tahani cuts in with little to no tact.

Cassian pauses. It’s not a question he knows how to answer – because the truth is not so pretty. Like everything in his life, even the most wonderful things began with contempt and bloodshed for him.

“Tahani,” Atike says with what sounds like practiced ease, “Back off.”

“It’s alright,” Jyn says. “We met through the rebellion.”

That’s all she tells them and Cassian nods, not wanting to give further details if she doesn’t. Instead, the conversation turns to him.

“So Cassian,” Mika leans forward, giving him a contemplative onceover “tell us about yourself. What do you do?”

“I work at a library. I’ve actually just started there while Jyn finishes her degree.” He pauses, racking his brain. What else could he say? “I come from Fest, I –”

_I’ve been a soldier since I was six, I first killed a man when I was eight, and I killed several after that. I lost my entire family to the war and I let my marriage get ruined because I was too afraid to fix it. I’ve done things I’m not proud of and I’ve seen things I can’t forget. I’m really not a good person._

How could he say any of that? Suddenly, he remembers this is why he doesn’t like meeting new people.

Luckily, Jyn sees him struggle and cuts in to help. “Cassian here is actually trying to figure out what to do with his life. He used to be a dedicated employee of the Republic, but it was time to move on.”

Hülya nods sympathetically and Cassian shoots Jyn a grateful smile.

“Oh, don’t fret.” Tahani waves a hand. “I’m sure you’ll find your passion.”

Their drinks arrive, and the conversation shifts to much safer subjects. Cassian shares a discussion about droid rights with Hülya and Atike once they find out about K2, and Tahani gushes about her dog for ten minutes, showing Cassian a million cutesy photos of him lying in bed, on the couch, and on the middle of the floor. Mika brags about his good looks, his brand-new apartment, and his ability to hold his liquor. Tamir doesn’t speak much but when he does, it’s always with purpose.

And Jyn smiles and holds his hand under the table. Cassian is almost having fun.

Until –

“I have to be honest, I never imagined Jyn as a wife,” Atike says after her third glass of cocktail, voice slurred, gesturing towards them. Clearly, _she_ can’t hold her liquor that well. “But you guys are cute.”

Hülya hums in agreement. “I never thought she was interested in dating at all.”

Jyn shakes her head as she takes a sip of her drink. “I’m not.”

“Right?” Atike says to Hülya, ignoring Jyn’s comment like she didn’t hear it. “I think the only time she hooked up with someone in the entire time we’ve known her was with Mika.”

Jyn goes still as a statue and Mika looks up from absentmindedly playing on his datapad. Cassian looks between the two of them, Atike’s words slowly sinking in. A knot grows in the pit of his stomach.

“How do you know about that?” Jyn hisses defensively. Her hand in his suddenly feels oppressive.

Atike looks like she just realized her error, her mouth the shape of an O, and everyone else looks at him with different levels of awkwardness and pity. Cassian wants to disappear into a hole in the ground. He can’t look at Jyn, tight with tension beside him.

They never talked about other people they were with during their separation. Cassian had been content to never know; if she’d been with someone, that was okay, it had been her right. They weren’t really together. He could have accepted that – but now that he knows and now that this person is sitting in front of him, he can’t stop thinking about Jyn in his arms. _His wife_ , in another man’s arms. Cassian bites his lip bloody, stomach churning. He withdraws his hand from hers, flexing it in his lap.

It’s Mika who answers Jyn with a tentative shrug. “I told Tamir when we got together.”

_“Mika!”_

“I’m sorry but we don’t keep secrets from each other.” He pauses, gives his boyfriend a look. “And he doesn’t keep secrets from his sister.”

“And I told Atike,” Tahani admits as the blame shifts to her. She winces. “I’m sorry.”

“Great.” Jyn throws her hands up in the air, pushing away from the table. “I can’t believe you all.”

“Jyn,” he says before things could get ugly. Her head snaps to him but he keeps his eyes on the table. It takes effort to get the words out, but he does it. “It’s fine.”

He’s not going to make a scene in front of her friends – he’s not going to make a scene at all. She’d been free to sleep with whoever she wanted to.

So why does he feel so angry?

Cassian raises his eyes to hers and sees that Jyn doesn’t believe him at all. He’s schooled his expression into impassivity, and he knows that gives it away – she knows him too well. Numbness is what he hides behind when he’s upset.

But she doesn’t call him out on it, turning back to her beer. The atmosphere is not as lighthearted as before, but they continue to drink with her friends like nothing happened.

* * *

“You’re using your spy face,” she tells him as they walk home from the bar. Her tone is chastising. “We’re supposed to talk about our feelings.”

Cassian looks ahead, hands in his pocket. There’s an inch of space between them that doesn’t feel right – but Jyn respects it and he can’t bring himself to step closer.

“If I do now,” he says, “I’m only going to be talking from a place of anger.”

Jyn nods, her tone resigned. “You hate me.”

“For kriff’s sake, Jyn.” He wheels on her and she stops, staring up at him in shock. So they’re doing this now, under the lamplight on the deserted streets. “No, I don’t hate you. But you know what, I would never introduce you to my previous conquests without telling you about it.”

Jyn pauses and looks at him for a second. She seems unsure, dejected.

“So there were others?”

“That’s not –” He lets out a frustrated exhale. “No.”

“No?” she asks, shocked.

“No, there was no one.”

It just didn’t happen for him. He was always at the office, working, and he would have had to go out of his way and make time to meet someone. There was no point going to all that trouble when he wasn’t really interested. His empty apartment kept him lonely, but the thought of sleeping with someone else made him lonelier.

Jyn looks relieved by this, then guilt-stricken as she realizes why he’s so upset. She’d been too, a moment ago.

“I’m so sorry,” she tells him, voice breathy and sincere.

Cassian shrugs, caught between his hurt and his understanding.

He realizes this is their first fight since they got back together. He didn’t dare have an argument with her out of fear that she’d leave. Just polite disagreements. Nothing serious. It occurs to him now that that’s no way to keep a marriage alive either.

“I don’t think you cheated on me, don’t worry. I just – didn’t particularly want to find out that way.”

That’s always what it comes back to. He knows why she left but he wishes she didn’t leave him like that. He gets that she had the freedom to sleep with someone else, but he wishes the information wasn’t dropped on him like a bomb.

“I should have told you,” Jyn agrees. “We should have talked about it. But it meant nothing, and I didn’t even think about it until Atike brought it up. It was just sex and –”

“Jyn,” he says, not wanting to hear about this in detail. He’s a little calmer now and if he thinks about it too much, he might get upset again.

“He reminded me of you,” she finishes with purpose. Cassian looks up, surprised, frowning. Jyn shrugs, her face open and sad and sincere. “That’s the only reason it happened. I was drunk and I missed you. There was nobody else.”

Cassian pauses. He steps closer, a little hesitant. He’s not sure how to feel about that – a part of him is pleased she’d never stopped missing him like he never stopped missing her but a bigger part of him wishes she hadn’t done it, he didn’t have to know about it.

“I’m not sure if that’s a compliment or not.”

She lets out a chuckle, nearly hysterical. Tentatively, he reaches out a hand and she latches onto it like a lifeline, twining their fingers together. She holds him so tightly that he can’t help letting go of his anger.

“Let’s just go home, Jyn.”

* * *

Cassian is washing his teeth when he sees her approach in the mirror. She shuffles up behind him in a tank top and pajama pants and slides her hands around his waist. Her lips press against his shoulder blade.

“I’m sorry about tonight,” she mumbles against his bare skin.

Cassian spits, rinses, then turns in her arms to face her.

“It’s alright,” he says and tries to show her he means it by wrapping his own arms around her shoulder. They stand like that in each other’s embrace, lost to the world around them.

“I don’t want to lose you again,” she says, and she doesn’t sound scared, but her tone is serious enough that he knows it’s a fear they’re both still struggling with. He knows she _had_ been scared when he was angry.

“What will it take you to believe that I’m not leaving?”

She lets out a puff of air, slumping against his chest. His hand comes up to rest on her back, running small comforting circles against her shirt.

“Just give me some time,” she mumbles into his chest. He tries not to shiver at the way her breath feels against his bare skin – _this isn’t the time._ “I feel like… I feel like if you did, I’d deserve it. Because _I_ left. I wouldn’t even blame you because I don’t really think I deserve any of this.”

But even as she admits it, she presses herself closer to him, as if any inch of her skin that isn’t touching his is just inconsequential. Cassian holds her tighter too, silently reassuring that he’s not going to let her go.

“People deserve second chances,” he tells her because if he tried to tell her she deserves the world and more, she’d never believe him. She doesn’t think she’s special or important – but she is to him, and that’s what makes the difference.

“That’s what we’re doing, you know, we’re giving this another chance. You deserve that.” He pauses, swallowing before he adds, the words burning his throat, “And I deserve that.”

_It goes both ways._

He can feel her nodding against his chest, then turn her head to press a kiss against his heart. Warmth spreads through his body and he weaves his fingers through her hair, smiling. They’re making this work.

* * *

After week six and the fourth date they’ve been on, they stumble through the door, laughing and soaked to the bone. They were caught in a rainstorm on the way back and Jyn held out her arms and tilted her head back and spun. Cassian watched, amazed and overwhelmingly in love, and not caring in the slightest that he was getting wet, until she tugged on his hand and made him join her. They slowly swayed in the rain, her head against his chest, the only music each other’s heartbeat.

Cassian suggested they head home when he feared they might get pneumonia if they stay out any longer – but if he gets sick the next morning, he won’t even mind because blast, it feels wonderful to be laughing with Jyn again. He grins at her, bright and unrestrained, as they take off their shoes and their dripping coats. Jyn kisses him when he straightens back up, a tender thing full of devotion. It feels like a question and intention all at once, and she pulls away to gauge his reaction. Eyes dark and unguarded. Full of hope and gentle longing.

There’s a shift between them, and it almost feels like their first time. Cassian, out of breath, slips his hand under the collar of her shirt and she shudders, eyes closing, leaning towards his touch. His fingers glide across her collarbone, his touch light and teasing and barely there. Jyn’s chest heaves with each breath, a flush blooming on her skin. Her eyes flutter open and they meet his. A moment passes between them.

Jyn cups his face and kisses him, pushing him against the wall at the same time. He responds eagerly, matching her intensity, wrapping his hands around her waist, playing with the edges of her wet shirt. This kiss is heated and heavy, the two of them letting go of all the restrictions they made themselves live with for the past four weeks. His fingers slip under her shirt, just barely but touching naked skin, and Jyn shivers under him. A small moan slips from her mouth. Cassian is losing his mind.

He breaks away from her, almost forcibly, and makes himself breathe in and out.

“We should get out of these wet clothes,” he says, and while he doesn’t necessarily mean it in a suggestive way, judging by the grin on Jyn’s face, she takes it as such.

“Alright,” she agrees with the same breathlessness he heard in his own voice.

She pulls away, unbuttons her shirt, – struggling a bit as the wet material sticks to her skin – then drops it to the floor. Cassian tries to breathe. Her breast band is a simple thing – but by the stars, it’s _white_. And soaked through. And though he’s seen her bare before, and barer than this too, a part of him still short-circuits at the sight of soft milky skin and large doe eyes blinking up at him with desire.

Jyn grins like she knows this and lifts her hand to undo her breast band. Cassian’s brain scrambles to keep up and he reaches out, stilling her movements.

“What’s wrong?” she frowns, a hint of worry in her tone. She looks like she’s wondering if she misunderstood his signals, but Cassian shakes his head.

“Nothing.” He swallows. His eyes sweep over her body. “I just want to undress you myself. If that’s okay.”

Jyn lets her hands drop. She steps closer and gives him a small affectionate smile.

“Go on, Captain,” she whispers, and he laughs, because of course. Of course she remembers that he particularly likes it when she calls him _that_. This woman will be the death of him.

But what a good way to go, he thinks as his hands slip up her sides. What a good way, indeed.

* * *

Jyn has an electric fireplace in her living room and afterwards, they lay down a blanket on the floor and cuddle up to watch the flames. It reminds him of their wedding night; or rather, the night they exchanged cloaks and they lay bundled up in them and each other’s embrace (because their wedding night, he spent in a medbay bed, go figure.) He felt so happy that day, so hopeful – but it doesn’t compare to the certainty he feels now holding her. This is different. A part of him had always been insecure then. Now he knows.

This is it. This is forever. And they are going to be very happy.

* * *

There’s a knock on the door and Cassian’s eyes shoot open. It takes him approximately two seconds to gather his bearings and remember what day it is – a side-effect of constantly living in danger for the better part of his life. Jyn groans in dissatisfaction and burrows further into him. Cassian glances at the chrono.

Fuck, they didn’t set an alarm, did they? Kriffing stars, of course they would forget to do that today of all days. Jyn is going to freak.

“I’m coming in,” warns Kay from the other side, and sure enough, he’s pushing the door open the next second. Cassian sits up and Jyn opens her eyes to glare at both of them.

“What? Kay, get out, I’m naked,” she tells the droid then closes her eyes again.

“You’re covered by blankets.”

“I’m naked under the blankets.”

“I do not see the problem.”

Jyn growls but her eyes remain closed. “I don’t know why the fuck I let your stupid droid live with us.”

“Be nice,” Cassian says but really, he wishes Kay would go too. “He’s right, we should get up. We’re going to be late.”

“That is all I came to inform you,” Kay confirms, and he sounds touchy as always. “It is your graduation day, Jyn Erso-Andor, and it would be inadvisable for you to be late on such a momentous occasion.”

“Fuck.” Jyn’s eyes shoot open and she glances at the chrono on the bedside table. _“Fuck.”_

“Fuck, indeed,” Kay repeats in the dry tone he always uses. Cassian almost cracks a smile.

“Kay, get out!”

Kay lets out an annoyed whirr.

“You can thank me later,” he says but turns around to walk out. Jyn launches herself out of the bed as soon as he’s gone, throwing their wardrobe door open. Cassian follows her example, a little more composed.

It’s been eight months since he moved here to be with her and six since Kay followed them. He and Jyn are just as antagonistic as always but Cassian thinks they’re begrudgingly fond of each other. It makes him smile every time Jyn snaps at Kay in a way that he knows means affection for her. Or when Kay snarks back, insulting and complimenting her at the same time. A peculiar relationship, and Cassian wouldn’t have it any other way.

Kay got a job as an analyst in a high-tech company and Jyn continued to work at Belbe’s while she finished college. She kept in touch with her friends and Cassian sometimes accompanied her to their monthly gatherings at the bar – hesitant at first, and unable to look at Mika, but less so after the first few times. It was just one of those things he learned to let go of.

Cassian settled in his position at the library and made new connections at the job. Co-workers who invited him to lunch and customers who smiled when he greeted them. He hadn’t made up his mind yet if this is what he wanted to keep doing but he began thinking about uncovering old and valuable books like his mother had, and that was something.

As for he and Jyn, they are in a good place now. In the years they spent apart, they learned to be independent; Jyn has found a purpose and Cassian is trying. They’re working on their problems, individually and as a couple. Jyn’s fear of vulnerability, Cassian’s fear of inadequacy. Both of their abandonment issues. Their post-traumatic stress. Cassian feels more secure than ever, and every day, Jyn gets brighter and braver. They’d never fully escape the war but they’re confident in each other.

It also helps, he thinks, that they’re both settled into peace now. They know each other’s absence, so they appreciate each other’s presence more. And sometimes, that makes all the difference.

“Fuck,” Jyn groans again, standing stark naked in front of their wardrobe, hand on her hips, “have you seen my white button up shirt? I swear I put it on a hanger in here.”

Cassian smiles to himself then points to the chair. “You put it there last night.”

“Oh, that’s right.” Jyn turns, grabbing the shirt from the back of the chair. “Tell me again why I remembered to prepare my outfit but forgot to set the alarm?”

Cassian shrugs. “You have a bad short-term memory?”

“Haha, Mr. It’s Just Thirty Minutes. You know I’m always mushy after sex and you seduced me anyway.”

Cassian steps into the refresher, flicking on the lights. “I didn’t hear you complaining. Now are you coming or not?”

She raises a finger at him. “Just showering.”

“Sure,” he agrees easily. It’s Jyn that ends up making a move anyway.

In the end, they’re only a little late.

**III. LOTHAL**

It’s Jyn’s idea to have the honeymoon they never had the chance to go on but Cassian has no complaints. He likes the sound of traveling with Jyn, seeing the galaxy before they settle down – wherever they do. They haven’t decided yet if they want to stay on Aria Prime but Cassian found the planet peaceful and charming and Jyn admitted it felt a lot more like home since he came to live with her. “In other words,” she’d said, “I’m fine wherever you are.”

But that’s an issue for another day. Their first stop during their travels is Lothal to visit Baze and Chirrut, and finally meet the little girl they shamefully haven’t seen yet. Baze gives them grief about it in his gruff and silent way and Chirrut makes some snide but ultimately well-meaning remarks during dinner. Cassian reads Kaia bedtime stories and teaches her how to bake sweet-sand cookies. Jyn plays hide and seek with her and braids her hair in an intricate three-way updo.

At night, cuddled up in the guest bedroom of Chirrut and Baze’s farmhouse, Cassian turns to Jyn and asks, “Would you want that someday? Children?”

They never discussed this before. He figures that’s one of those things they should have talked about before getting married – but better late than never.

Jyn is silent but he can tell she’s mulling over the question. It’s not an easy one and he’s honestly not sure where he stands either. On one hand, he sees Poe, he sees Kaia, and he knows this is what they fought for. For their future. For the chance of a better life. On the other hand, he remembers his own childhood, he knows the tragedy of Jyn’s. He wonders if either of them would have any idea how to be a parent and he knows they couldn’t bear to leave any children of their own orphans. The galaxy is so cruel – they have peace now but peace never lasts forever. He couldn’t thrust them into a role of child soldiers like the two of them had been.

“Honestly?” Jyn breaks the silence, speaking softly. “I don’t know. There’s so much that could go wrong…”

“Yeah…”

“Maybe someday. It might be a possibility. I don’t know.” She shakes her head then cranes her neck to look up at him. “Do you?”

He huffs out a laugh. “I’m pretty much where you are.”

“Oh, okay.”

“We don’t have to figure it out right now,” he concedes, content to let the conversation end here.

Jyn nods and there’s silence. After a second, she adds, “But it’s good to know we can if we want to.”

Cassian smiles. The freedom of choice is nice, indeed.

* * *

Bodhi arrives a week later, because when Jyn sends him a message to tell him they’re here, he can’t resist getting the whole gang back together. Cassian is unspeakably grateful to see all five of them under the same roof again and when they sit down to eat, something in his heart fills to bursting at the sight. At Jyn laughing happily at Bodhi’s jokes. At Baze and Chirrut bickering amicably. At little Kaia eagerly tugging on Cassian’s hand to be seated in his lap.

_This is what genuine happiness must feel like._

“Cassian?” Jyn calls, springing him out of his thoughts. “Are you listening?”

He looks around, a little lost. He has no idea what they were just talking about.

“Hmm?”

Jyn rolls her eyes fondly. “I said, can you please tell these moof-milkers that I really did meditate for six hours that one time. They don’t believe me.”

“Yeah, Jyn and patience.” Bodhi shakes his head. “I don’t think so.”

“She’s exaggerating,” Cassian admits, smiling when Jyn gasps and throws him a dirty look.

_“Traitor!”_

“Sorry, love, but I don’t think they would believe me this time.”

“Yeah, whatever. I think meditating for thirty minutes and falling asleep should count. My mind was still turned off, wasn’t it?”

Cassian’s lips twitch up in amusement and Bodhi throws his head back and laughs. Kay goes on to inform Jyn that her logic is flawed, as always, and it leads to a predictable argument between the two of them. Kaia has fallen asleep in his lap. Cassian has never felt so good.

* * *

It’s the last two days of their stay at Lothal and his friends are up to something. They sneak around the house, whisper behind his back, and abruptly stop talking when he enters the room. Baze is quieter than usual and Chirrut smiles at him like he knows something Cassian doesn’t – well, that isn’t so different from normal. Jyn holds herself tighter in the way she does when she’s keeping something from him, but he doesn’t think it’s anything bad because he can’t detect any worry or fear from her.

Bodhi is the most obvious. He stutters when Cassian asks him what he was talking about with Jyn and can barely look Cassian in the eye most of the time. Cassian isn’t stupid and if he put his mind to it, he could figure out what they are up to. He was a spy, for kriff’s sake, it was literally his job to know other people’s secrets – but he decides to let them play their games. He’s kind of curious to see where it all leads to.

So when Kaia begs him to take her to the city for ice-cream, _“and only you, Uncle Cassian,”_ clearly as a ploy to get him out of the house for whatever his friends are doing, Cassian plays along. Whatever it is, it can’t be that bad.

Four hours, two ice-creams, and a long stay at the playground later, Cassian arrives back to the farmhouse with Kaia to silence. He frowns. The little girl beside him is practically skipping and he throws her a curious glance, wondering where this is all going. He steps into the living room and finds a note pinned to the wall that reads, “OUTSIDE.”

Cassian gives Kaia another look and she openly grins now, giving up the pretense completely. Honestly, he doesn’t know what they expected from a four-year-old little girl. He huffs out a quiet laugh and heads towards the backdoor in the kitchen, excitement and anticipation drumming in his veins. He isn’t usually a fan of surprises – but he trusts these people. He can count on them to have his best interests at heart.

With that thought, he pushes the backdoor open and steps outside. He half expects someone to shout “surprise” like it was a birthday party in a holomovie, even though it’s nowhere near close to his birthday. That doesn’t happen. But oh, it looks like a party alright.

The garden is decorated with blue and white flowers, fairy lights hanging from the trees, a long table packed with food and drinks set against the side of the house. A small white cake sits in the center. There’s a grand flower arch in the middle of the garden and Chirrut stands underneath it, smiling, while Jyn and Bodhi stand to the left. They’re all smiling too – Bodhi grinning at him without restraint, and Jyn gazing at him with a strangely soft expression. Kay stands to the right and he’s not smiling – but he doesn’t look particularly petulant either.

Cassian looks around with wide eyes, more confused than ever.

“What is this?”

Jyn shrugs, a little timid. “A wedding.”

He stares.

“ _Our_ wedding.”

Half-certain that his brain is melting, Cassian steps forward, stops, looks around again. Words fail him for a second, then he shakes his head, blinking.

“I…”

Seeing his stunned silence, Jyn takes a step toward him, pointing at each of their friends.

“Kaia is the flower girl, Bodhi and Kay are our witnesses, and Chirrut is our officiant. Baze is the one who gives me away – not that I need it, but I wanted to include him somehow.” She shoots a smile at Baze who gives her a grateful nod.

Cassian blinks at her. She walks up to him, hand reaching out to touch his.

“Ideally, you’re the groom.”

Cassian lets out a quiet huff of laugh at that. “Ideally, yes. You do know we’re already married, right?”

Jyn nods, now taking both of his hands and weaving their fingers together.

“I know but… we did it so wrong the first time. We should have something more. And when you told me you left behind our cloaks, you said you didn’t know what we were anymore, and ever since then I felt like I had to prove something. And this could be our new fresh start. Our better start.”

Jyn blows out a breath, staring up at him with big green eyes, both shy and hopeful.

“So what do you say, you wanna marry me again?”

Cassian looks around at their friends, patiently waiting. All dressed in regular clothes against the backdrop of an idyllic backyard. He smiles and squeezes Jyn’s hand.

“How could I say no with all this?”

* * *

It’s an intimate affair between the seven of them, no frivolity, no grandeur. Just a simple quiet ceremony where they declare their love for each other and promise to stay together for better or worse. It’s symbolic; they never made that promise the last time. Then, their wedding was little more than hastily pronounced “I dos” and a bloody-lipped kiss during which he almost passed out. The contrast is striking, and he knows they both mean the forever part this time.

They drink and dance until the sun goes down and when everyone else retreats to their rooms, they make love under the stars on the fur cloaks Jyn got them to replace the old ones.

New cloaks. For a new start.

Cassian has an arm around her shoulder, her head on his chest and her hair tickling his nose, their breaths slowing down. Jyn idly runs her fingers across his ribcage, splaying her hand across his heart. They’re both silent for a while, too overwhelmed to speak.

“As soon as we’re out of here,” Cassian tells her once his heartrate has slowed down, “I’m going to make you scream my name.”

Jyn lets out a quiet laugh.

“Is that a promise?” she teases him but there’s a sliver of anticipation in her voice.

“You bet it is,” Cassian grunts and Jyn chuckles again. He pulls the cloak tighter around them, pressing Jyn flush against his body. She hums, her eyes closing as she rests her head on his shoulder, looking content and satisfied. Cassian watches her for a second, his heart swelling. A thought materializes in his mind; it takes him a moment to grasp it.

“We’re going to be alright, aren’t we?” he says, a little awed, still watching Jyn. Yes, he’d hoped, he’d wanted – but sometimes it felt like an unattainable dream for him. Something he wasn’t meant for. But with Jyn in his arms and the utter peace that surrounds them, the epiphany comes to him that perhaps he already has it.

Jyn opens her eyes to peek up at him.

“Yeah, I think so,” she whispers, her voice sincere. “As long as we never stop fighting for each other.”

He leans down to press a kiss on the top of her head, smiling into her hair. “Deal.”

It’s that thought that he falls asleep with. The thought of new beginnings and second chances. He thinks of Fest and how it hadn’t been what he remembered it to be; he thinks of his old relationship with Jyn and how he’d been afraid to change it and how they’re not those people anymore.

He thinks of how you can’t regain what you lost, but how you can rebuild it into something better and stronger. 

When they leave Baze and Chirrut the next day with the promise of seeing each other soon, Jyn takes his hand and asks, “Where to next, husband?”

He smiles. “Wherever.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that's it, folks! Thank you for coming on this journey with me, it was really a great ride and I hope you enjoyed it as well.
> 
> As always, you can find me on [tumblr.](https://captainandors.tumblr.com/)


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